Heinlein Station

May 12, 2085

Botanica was a medium-sized crater, recently sealed to hold an atmosphere of oxygen baked from lunar rock and nitrogen imported from Aeros asteroid. It was less than a kilometer across, and situated four klicks northwest of Heinlein station, five hundred klicks from the lunar South Pole.

Only in the last five months had the crater merited any special attention. In the beginning had come the standard exploration and mining teams, searching for He3 concentrations and fossil ice, but in the end Botanica was no more interesting than a thousand other craters of similar size, and nothing came of the initial efforts.

Its current condition would mock that first impression. The crater housed a dome now, the rock surfaces sealed, the weight of its water shield exquisitely calculated to balance the atmospheric pressure within and strength of the crust beneath.

At any given time a hundred men worked that dome, outside and inside and deep down. Lava tubes burrowed beneath Botanica, and drills had brushed pockets of fossil ice. On a day not too distant, hordes of tourists would walk and climb these modularly constructed halls and walls. Such a structure had never existed anywhere in the solar system, and despite a Luny’s typically blase seen-it-all-before attitude, the most recent modifications caused them to buzz with speculation. What were they? What did it all mean?

For days now, one man on the construction and painting crew had walked the hundred giant bubble-rooms that now filled the dome, spraying paint fixative along the connecting corridors. He was a tall, dark, thin fellow, with high cheekbones that cried out for tribal scars. Christened Douglas Frost, he had been born under another, more exotic name. Frost was currently three months from the end of a two-year lunar rotation.

So many times had Frost refilled his tank on his back that he’d stopped really looking at what he was lacquering. Today, for some reason, he’d begun observing more carefully, and soon his curiosity was piqued.

A political animal, during his lunar sojourn Frost had watched the Earthfeed for news of national and international power-jostling. The last six months had actually brought some of this electoral excitement to the moon, and he had watched with pleasure, enjoying the debates and friendly arguments, playing them over and over in his mind. Independence for Luna and the Belt? Or continued subservience to the national and corporate interests that had financed the original installations? They were a gaggle of privileged fools, pondering the stars while billions on Earth remained locked in eternal servitude.

Douglas Frost kept his opinions to himself. Lunar money was excellent, and his brother Thomas was the only friend he needed here. Beer-fueled political bull sessions were popular among these fools, but not for the Brothers Frost.

But something about this raised area had punched through his other thoughts, pulled at him, whispered urgently that there was something here, something elusive to the casual observer.

He was so busy staring at the frieze before him, that he never saw Hal Tessier drifting up behind him.

“So, Doug,” Hal began. Even as he studied the lacquered wall, its gleaming wet sheen began to dull. Doug thought the man a pompous ass, whether debating politics or playing chess. “You’re just about finished with your two-year. High marks across the board. Know McCauley over in Fabrication?”

Indeed he did. “Sure.”

“Well, Toby authorized me to make you and your brother an offer to come back in a year. Interested?”

Doug hid his smile, pretending to be surprised.

Tessier was a short, forceless man with thinning brown hair and a gut that would have sagged like mud under Earth gravity. Doug wondered if his supervisor had rigged his compulsory PT points. In theory, everyone took their exercise time seriously. In reality, there was a gap between the official tally and the actual amount of healthy physical stress.

Weak muscles, brittle bones… some of these makaku were never going home.

“You know? If you’d asked me last month, I might have said no. But…” Doug shrugged.

“But?” Hal asked.

“It grows on you, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does,” Hal nodded. “I feel like I’m part of something… I don’t know. The future? Does that make sense? This is about more than just us, you know?”

Moving down the hall, looking more carefully at the images so recently sealed, Doug was splitting his attention between Hal and a visceral sense of excitement, something that he had not experienced in far too long. Life in Heinlein base was unbelievably involving, but this new possibility was something else.

“I do,” he replied.

“Look,” Hal said. “There are a lot of people who’d like to come up here, but you two have the experience, the skills, and you can handle close spaces just great. What do you think?”

Doug tore his eyes away from… glossy creatures that looked like a cross between a merman and a centipede. Strange. Very alien. But… somehow familiar. Hadn’t he seen this before, somewhere?

“Is the first month back as hard as they say?”

“First six weeks on Earth are murder. How are your points?” Hal sucked his gut in as he said it, as if suddenly aware that he was asking questions he himself would prefer not to answer.

“Hundred a week minimum, straight up. Bone density’s great. DPA has me at 105 percent of normal.” Dual Photon Absorptiometry, the standard measuring technique in medical. “Upper body strength 10 percent greater than when I left New York, lower body about 2 percent greater. Top two percentile on all counts.”

Hal blinked, impressed. “Watch your joints, though. Listen. When you make a decision, let me know, and we’ll put you on the schedule.”

Hal walked away. Despite his ample gut, he moved with a sort of springy bounce-step virtually impossible to train out of the Earth-born.

Doug chuckled, dropped his safety mask back into place, and continued spraying. He’d worked on several different aspects of this new construction job. This included working with prefab structures dropped from orbit, and extruding lunar aluminum there at the surface. All had had their challenges and rewards.

None was even remotely as rewarding as this new, incredible possibility.

Geneva, Switzerland

June 22, 2085

For five hundred years, the world’s finest timepieces had been designed and assembled in Geneva, Switzerland. After centuries of conservative tradition, the twenty-first century saw a flowering of mechanical engineering and micro-electronics, as well as telecommunications, information technology and artificial intelligence.

Geneva had become Europe’s Silicon Valley, with all the money, power and glamour that that implied. According to Zagat, four of the world’s top one hundred hotels were located in this one ancient city, and the very best of these was the Geneva Arms.

Tonight, the Arms swarmed with luminaries and paparazzi, the streets lined with fans hoping to glimpse the wealthy and famous at play. The street and sky were crammed with traffic. Lightly drifting snowflakes dusted the street, lending the cobblestones an almost ethereal elegance.

Scotty Griffin stood near the doorway, eyes on the crowd. “Station One, Starburst is leaving the ballroom. Do you have visual?”

From his observation position two hundred feet away, Scotty’s partner Foley Mason answered. “Affirmative, Moonman. All clear.”

Moonman. If he hadn’t been on duty, Scotty would have either laughed or winced. He could hear his father’s voice in his head: You’re there for the client, Scotty. Stay focused on the job…

“Entering limo,” he said, and cleared the way for his primary, a seventeen-year-old Belgian chocolate heiress. Her snow-white hair and pouting ruby lips had graced a thousand magazine covers, especially those adhering to the Fit/Fat standard of beauty currently in vogue. Her body had the kind of effortlessly sensual plumpness that no teenager could appreciate, and any woman-and most men-over forty would die for. Adriana “Cocoa Angel” Vokker.

The girl favored the videographers with a slow-motion wave, a practiced regal gesture. She flipped her blond hair back and thrust out one ample hip, canted that beautiful rounded jaw into an angle no tabloid could resist, and smiled. It seemed to Scotty that she spread that charm equally thick across the entire crowd… but seemed to linger on a rather severe, powerfully built blond man, who smiled and nodded in return. Scotty turned slightly toward him, the video feed on his sunglasses automatically recording the man’s image.

Scotty remembered the blond man: The big fellow had danced with Adriana twice during the evening’s ball, and there had been much merry whispering between them.

Might be nothing at all. At seventeen, she was of legal age in either Belgium or Switzerland, and technically able to make her own decisions, but her father-who was paying the bills-seemed to have a tight grip.

The limo door closed, and it lifted from the ground and into traffic.

Adriana Vokker sighed massively and tossed her head. “That was… boring,” she said, in deeply accented English.

Scotty smiled without laughing. He rarely laughed in front of clients. “Boring? You never sat out a dance, miss. I wouldn’t have thought you were bored.”

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat. The night skyline glittered outside the car as they melded into the traffic flow, heading back to the hotel. “Scotty,” she said, as if speaking to a child. “It’s all image. Sparkle, sparkle, sparkle. Believe me, it wearies.” English was her third language, but while thickly accented, her speech was skilled. Some emotional undercurrent in her voice caught his attention, then vanished before he could decipher it. Ah well. It wasn’t really his job to read the little minx’s mind, just to keep her safe.

“I’m turning in early tonight,” she said, face still turned away.

“Your call, Miss Vokker.” He clicked his tongue against his back teeth, switching on his necklace mike. “Station One, Starburst is returning to roost. Let’s make it an early night.”

At the moment, there was nothing more to say. Their human chauffeur was for window-dressing and emergencies: All aircars rode the city grid. Still, the man went about his job’s minimal obligations soberly, scanning the instrument panel as if he might have to take control at any moment. Good man.

Well, so far nothing out of the ordinary. So, then… the day after tomorrow Adriana would return home, and Scotty’s assignment would be over.

The snow-sprinkled streets sped by beneath him, and as long as Scotty refused to look up at the naked stars overhead, he was just fine.

Aire-la-ville, Geneva

They had arrived from the east, slipping over the horizon before dawn brushed the darkness from the eastern sky.

For twenty minutes, Scotty Griffin and Foley Mason had camped on a grassy picnic area a thousand meters from the outer fence of the Cheneviers waste treatment plant. While Scotty studied the T-shaped building with binoculars, Mason fiddled and fussed over his briefcase-sized deep-scan equipment. The hundreds of windows on the broad head were mostly darkened, the parking lot with its rows of charging posts only one-tenth filled.

Scotty and Mason didn’t have extensive apparatus. They’d have preferred police-level hardware, or, better, military quality. But all they had was the standard kit Scotty carried on any job, anywhere in the world: first aid, communications and tracking gear, scanning equipment.

“Standard waste treatment plant. Early-morning staff. Skeleton staff.”

“So?”

Mason rolled over onto his back on the grass, staring up at the dark, early-morning sky. “If you have a tiny crew of bad guys, and can get ’em all scheduled for the same graveyard shift, you could lock down a place like this, yeah.”

Scotty nodded. “Hear anything?”

Mason had switched from thermal to optical zoom, and had triggered the voice scan software. He was using a sample of Adriana’s voice to search for a match.

His partner was so fully engaged that for a moment Scotty thought he hadn’t heard. Then Mason answered him. “Not yet… but it doesn’t mean she’s not there.”

“Doesn’t mean she is, either. I’m going in.”

“Figured you would, kid. I’ll keep scanning.”

Scotty donned a black knit thermal isolation suit, goggles and a throat mike.

“Wish you had a real piece,” Mason said, as Scotty checked his stun gun.

“Makes two of us.” Twenty-eight bee-sized capacitor darts loaded into a pistol grip with a five-inch barrel. He hadn’t tested the unit on a real, live bad guy, but the specs said it kicked like a mule. “That said, if they’re innocent, I’m not expecting much security. Who breaks into a garbage plant?”

“Scavengers. The Sewage Diet. Ten billion sewer rats can’t be wrong. That’s if they’re innocent. What if they’ve got her?”

“Well, I’ll just have to be clever, won’t I?”

“I wasn’t aware miracles were an option… Wait! I think I have something.”

Scotty hunched down. “Where?”

Mason pointed. “Northwest corner. Three thermal images. One seated. I think I caught something a second ago. ‘Est-ce que je peux aller a la salle de bains?’ ”

“That I recognize. ‘May I go to the bathroom.’ Adriana’s voice?”

“Fifty-two percent certainty. Woman, under twenty-five. That’s all I’m sure of. It’s a chance.”

“I hope so.” He sniffed the predawn air. “Hope so. This place smells like armpits.”

Sleep-deprived, bruised and emotionally drained, Scotty stood in the middle of the Imperial suite on the eleventh floor of the Exeter hotel, the very last place in the world he wanted to be. He was in absolutely no mood to be abused by an enraged father who was relieved, but not mollified, by his daughter’s rescue.

Christian Vokker was a short, stocky man, dwarfed by his three bodyguards, who encircled little Adriana like alps sheltering a hillock. The girl sat with her legs folded primly, fingers folded in her lap and face blank, the unwilling focus of the current conversation.

No, that was wrong. It wasn’t a conversation. In a conversation, one person speaks and another answers. This was a monologue. Mr. Vokker had been speaking nonstop at Scotty and Mason for five minutes, and very little of it had been easy to hear.

“Yes, I am grateful,” he said. Something in his tone made Scotty hope he was winding down. “And I understand that you placed your life at risk. It is only for those reasons that I simply suggest you find other employment, rather than purchasing advertising in English, Chinese and Spanish, etching your colossal ineptitude on every Web and across the sky, for all with eyes to see.”

Scotty managed to smile. “Sounds grateful to me.”

Vokker made a dismissive gesture, and turned his back. Adriana peered between the enormous bodyguards, face pinched. I’m sorry…, she seemed to be saying.

“Son of a bitch…,” Scotty muttered as they left.

Older and wiser, Mason merely shook his head.

An anemic sun hung low on the horizon, casting baleful shadows across a glittering field of bloodstained ice. The plain was littered with the honored dead, their sprawled corpses mangled into arcane siguls, redolent of valor, and skill, and death. Thousands lay split-skulled, their brains cooling and drying beneath a pale, cool sun. A few dozen of their stronger, more fortunate companions battled on, armor bent and bloodied, swords notched and gore-crusted.

From time to time the warriors paused, wiping sweaty arms against their helms, leaning on their swords like exhausted amputees on bloody crutches, gasping and glowering at their opponents before they hoisted swords and began the slaughter anew. Action swirled around an oversized human shape: Loki, writhing in the grip of a snake thrice his size.

The tableau shifted: The darkening sky bled red, then split. Clouds parted as a flock of winged wolves appeared. At first they appeared as faint specks against the pitiless clouds. Now they resolved into sharper focus.

A brassy wail drowned out the ring of metal on metal, and the moans of the wounded and dying. Combatants raised their weary eyes to the heavens, and laid down their swords, stretching their arms up as if calling to the beautiful Valkyries whose crimson or golden hair flagged out in the wind, placid faces surveying the carnage with infinite compassion and calm.

The wind seemed to shape itself into a controlled whistle. A cynical ear might have suggested that it sounded much like Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” Played through a kazoo.

Now even the dead rose from their places, and held their arms up to the sky. The Norse angels plucked up first one, and then another… and carried them off to the skies. A parade of Valkyries carried off more and more of the dead and dying. Each survivor was spirited away, along with about half of the dead. In less than two minutes, it was over.

The winged wolves wheeled and returned to the heavens. Clouds roiled as the sky closed. The remaining corpses moaned and cursed in a manner unbefitting the dead.

“Shit! I never get chosen-”

Lights snapped on and the frozen plain, the cold mountains and the bleak sky all disappeared, leaving behind eight frustrated people in a domed room fifty meters in diameter, just large enough for three times that number to swing padded swords without thumping one another.

Amid a chorus of disappointed curses, they unbuckled their light armor. The losers trudged off the combat stage toward the dressing rooms and showers, and, thought a thoroughly bored Wayne Gibson, probably the slot machines and gambling pits, to drown their disappointment in more disappointment.

“That’s a wrap,” he said to his one-woman crew. Buffy Childress applauded ritually, as if it had truly been a job well done.

Eighteen months past he would have agreed with Buffy. Two years ago he had landed this job at the Fantasy Park Escalade, a tenth-rate Dream Park rip-off a half mile off the Vegas strip. Three times daily he coordinated the Escalade’s big games, the motifs generally rotated on a monthly basis. This month was The Ragnarok Experience ™. Fifty minutes ago, twenty bright-eyed players had entered the arena. Judging by the body language, adrenaline and exertion had toasted them all.

The side door opened and the winners, who had been quietly asked to leave the stage-only a fool argues with a Valkyrie-emerged. One of the survivors was a woman most would have thought too skinny these days, but Wayne liked just fine. He had recognized her superior coordination and conditioning the instant she had stepped onto the platform. There was something familiar about her, but she was using an assumed gaming name, wearing a mask, and had declined to use a gaming profile. So… whatever happened here wouldn’t affect her IFGS points (not that she could pick up many from a place like the Escalade). She was just enjoying a little anonymous slaughtering of her inferiors. Not especially admirable, but he’d done as much himself, in bad moods on bad days.

“What now?” Childress said. She had the body of a showgirl and the bored manner of a blackjack dealer on a midnight shift. Just Wayne and Buffy were needed to run the game. The Escalade’s management weren’t the kind to spend pinchable pennies.

“Now, we take a break, and do it all over again in two hours.”

She nodded and began her standard checklist of the computer systems while Wayne stripped himself out of the control suit and his shell-shaped chair.

“Time to make an appearance,” he muttered. He walked the narrow corridor to the door of the combat stage. He fixed a smile to his face and opened the door, holding his hands high.

“Welcome!” Wayne said, forcing cheer through his waxy smile. “And congratulations to those stalwarts who have survived, and been chosen to receive the Escalade medal of honor!”

The top 50 percent of the players applauded, commending themselves more than him. They were tired and battered to a pleasant soreness and not one iota more. Armor absorbed 90 percent of the impact of the padded swords. Only a hemophiliac with glass bones would sustain any real damage.

The Ragnarok Experience ™ was actually a pretty sweet deal for the guests. Half of them “won” on any given game, thereby accruing points to play more sophisticated contests elsewhere. Some of them even went on to play low-level IFGS games, but he imagined most were satisfied with the illusion that they were real rootin’ tootin’ gamers. They would return to their mundane lives, and remember the time they strapped on armor and wailed the crap out of a Tuskegee stockbroker for fifty minutes without garnering either a coronary or a criminal record.

But he kept those thoughts to himself, smiling and nodding and bowing…

And noticing that one woman in the back, the one with the killer body, was clapping without letting her palms touch. Pure symbol. Her half-face mask shadowed a sardonic smile.

He completed the rest of his pitch encouraging them to come back any time, and every time, and compete for more points and prizes, and to go out and spend the rest of their vacation money at the gaming tables.

After a few weary claps, they trudged back to their changing cubicles.

But the mystery woman walked up to him and said with perfect diction, “Good to see you haven’t altogether abandoned bullshit.”

If she had hit him in the chest with a Mitsubishi shocksword, it couldn’t have been a bigger jolt.

“Angelique,” he said, struggling to find something clever to say. “Angelique Chan. As always, your consonants are remarkable. Since when do you play with the kindergarten?”

“I wanted to find out how much of your talent remains unsquandered,” she said bluntly. “It’s been a long time.”

Was that a reference to their prior relationship, or his current level of skill? There was something lurking behind her words, and he just couldn’t imagine what it was. One dark, hot spark of hope flared for a moment, and Wayne tamped it down. Hope killed.

Angelique was five foot ten, just one inch shorter than Wayne, and taller in her heels. She was dressed as Hela, the death goddess from Marvel Comics: black shadings and a spiky headdress. She was leaner than a Valkyrie, a meld of Chinese and Filipina blood that promised both sensuality and fierce intelligence, and delivered on the promise.

No good could come of those memories, and he shut them down. He said, “So… you’ve seen.”

“Your subroutines?”

“Yeah. The hotel bought some standard games, but I get to tweak and then I get to operate.”

“Not bad, really. You need to tighten up the automated response loops, but really I have no major complaints.” She cut her eyes sideways at him. She was playing a game. Angelique was always playing a game. “Time for a bite?”

He managed a grin. “Schmoozing the customers is part of the job. The Escalade has a great buffet.”

“We can do better than that,” she said, twinkling at him. “Give me ten to get showered, and meet me at the eastern slots.”

1523, Congo Brazzaville Time, June 23, 2085

The flight from Switzerland to the Republic of Kikaya had taken three hours, most of it with autopilot locked securely into a diplomatic flight grid. While they referred to their time zones differently, the Republic of Kikaya and Switzerland utilized the same time zone, so his body felt no oddness.

The shuttle was first class, the hostess who kept the champagne flowing even more so. The alcohol, in combination with his fatigue, encouraged Scotty to recline his seat and close his eyes for a blessed catnap.

When he regained his senses, his glass had been balanced carefully on the serving table and the pilot had taken control for the landing.

The girl was lovely, dark as eggplant, hair woven into tight rows that exposed a scrubbed scalp. Her epicanthic folds were so pronounced her eyes were almost Asiatic. When she spoke, her accent suggested that her English teachers might have actually been English. “Did you have a pleasant nap, sir?”

“Very,” he said. They were at about three thousand feet. Spokes of golden light radiated through the eastern clouds. His body still felt heavy, but his spirits were light. He had been offered work, an opportunity to blot out the memory of the last seventy-two hours.

Excellent.

The shuttle descended through the clouds, over a patchwork of cultivated land and crisscrossing roads. The agricultural lands slowly transformed into residential spirals nestled within urban squares, housing arranged in circular patterns subtly different from comparable European or Asian housing tracts. This was followed by an industrial region. That gave way to another urban sprawl, this one with tighter, more carefully designed spirals and circles, evidence of greater organization and wealth.

Ahead, just touched by the first rays of sunlight, lay Marozi, the capital of Kikaya. The business district, and at the center of it, the royal palace itself.

He’d done a bit of Internet research on the republic before boarding the plane. The country had been carved out of the Republic of the Congo in 2034 by a bloody coup. Kikaya I had been a Congolese general with ties to royalty, the family connections sufficiently impressive to entice allies at home and investors abroad. Seizing power had been the easy part. Crafting the RK into a prosperous and healthy country was another matter. He’d look more deeply into that later, but now, at least he had a basic idea what he was dealing with.

With a barely perceptible shush, the shuttle landed. The hostess smiled. “We are home.”

The grit of fatigue and irritation still grinding under his eyelids, Scotty grabbed his hastily packed overnight bag and followed the lady. If this turned into an actual assignment, he would call the hotel in Geneva and have them send the rest of his luggage, including his equipment. For right now, this was enough.

As he ducked his head and stepped down from the sleek shuttle, he wondered if a band was going to play the local version of “Hail to the Guest,” and was slightly disappointed when it didn’t happen.

There was, however, a spiffy officer whose blue-black skin gleamed brightly as the gold braid on his shoulders. His spine was so erect he might have been smuggling bamboo.

“Mr. Griffin,” he said in perfect English. “I trust your flight was pleasant?”

“Fine, thank you,” repeating his automatic reply.

“I am Mboui Otama. At your service, sir. May I take your luggage?”

Scotty offered the bag, but held on to one of the straps, so that both of them were holding it at the same time. “My understanding was that if I didn’t like the proposition, this shuttle will take me wherever I want to go. Does that offer still hold?”

“Of course.”

“Then let’s just leave my things here on the shuttle, and if I need them, I’ll send for them.” A symbolic gesture. He was watching carefully gauging the reaction.

Otama didn’t flinch. “Fine. This way, please.”

He hated to admit it, but he enjoyed this to an absurd degree. It seemed a throwback to some older, more elegant time. “Does everyone get this treatment?”

Otama’s lips turned up in a slight grin. “Almost everyone.”

Ah. Deflate the American. Scotty squashed a flash of disappointment. “Oh,” was all he said.

Otama grinned now, a mouth filled with gold teeth. “I joke. Only guests of the royal house are treated in such a manner.”

Scotty grinned. He doubted that Otama joked like that with everyone. Was he being tested because of his own dark skin? “And that’s me?”

“That, I believe, is you.”

The airpad was at the center of a young hedge maze, and the honor guard followed at a walk as Scotty and Otama were shuttled through it, to the steps of a three-story, white colonial mansion with eight porch columns and at least a hundred windows. The filigree looked handwrought, knobs and handrails inset with ivory and gold.

Again, Scotty was impressed. “This is… amazing.”

Otama nodded. “Built for King Leopold in 1879. At one time, it was thought that the King himself might come to visit his rubber-tree holdings.”

“It never happened?”

A warm, friendly smile. “A good thing for him. His plantation workers were sharpening their knives.”

Scotty had been many places in his career and travels, but never in a palace. Its high, arching ceilings and ornately carved abstracts were almost overwhelming. Striding toward them was an imposing white-haired black man in regal dress, effusively extending his hand. Scotty recognized him from the computer images. This would be Kikaya II, the son of the country’s first leader. Scotty didn’t know whether to kiss the hand or bow, and settled for a warm, dry shake. Calluses crusted that broad flat hand like barnacles on an old battleship. “Mr. Griffin. So kind of you to come.”

He nodded. Kikaya clasped his hand affectionately. Scotty sensed that he was being thoroughly measured. What was this man looking for? In all likelihood men of this nature were used to indirect approaches by petitioners currying favor. Scotty was in the odd position of being the one sought, and decided to use that. “Your highness,” he said. “It’s been a long trip. I’d appreciate knowing what this is about.”

Kikaya tilted his round head. One of his eyes, Scotty noticed, was slightly offset. “Ah. You have no idea at all?”

“None,” he admitted, “but the retainer was large enough to catch my interest.”

“Take my arm, please.”

Scotty did, and as if they were old friends, they began to walk now, toward an unspecified destination. Probably a tea or meeting room of some kind, but first a stroll past paintings and statues and images of the ancestors.

“Is money all that motivates you?”

Scotty shrugged. “I like to travel.”

The Kikayan monarch brightened. “Do you indeed? In my younger days, I enjoyed travel as well. My responsibilities currently prevent me from enjoying such freedoms.”

Scotty decided to head off the slight sense of irritation he was beginning to feel. “Mr. President, I don’t mean to be rude, but I haven’t slept in twenty hours, and I’d love to find out what it is that seems so urgent. And… ah… there was mention of ten thousand New dollars?”

Kikaya II grinned. Money, it seemed, was a universal language. He touched his thumb to a bracelet on his left wrist, and a computer screen hovered in the air before them. “Your bank account. Please note the recent deposit.”

Very nice. Efficient. Even better, his request had triggered no offense or indignation. These were all good signs. “Cool. All right, what can I do for you, sir?”

“What do you know about me?” President Kikaya asked.

There is simply no substitute for research. “I know that you ascended to the throne at the age of seventeen-your bloodline was the only one that all factions could agree upon after the Independence War in 2034. For the first thirteen years some called you a bloody tyrant, but you are currently thought a progressive leader.”

“And if I was still thought a tyrant?”

The answer came to him at once, but he took his time speaking it. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Kikaya stared at him, and then roared with laughter. Scotty allowed himself a polite chuckle, but was careful to rein it back in before Kikaya’s explosion ceased.

“You speak your mind,” Kikaya said. “I like that. Next time, don’t wait so long after you have decided what to say.”

“Fair enough,” Scotty said. “So… why am I here, sir?”

Kikaya’s round face split with a quieter, more private amusement. “A moment ago I was ‘your highness.’ And now I am merely ‘sir’?”

Scotty shrugged and took a chance. Kikaya had invited a certain informality. All right, let’s see if he really wants it. “I’m not saying that familiarity breeds contempt, but it certainly encourages a certain informality.”

Kikaya’s smile seemed genuine. “Indeed it does.” He lowered his voice and arched his eyebrows, one man sharing delicious speculation with another. “In fact, without a certain amount of familiarity, it is almost impossible to breed anything at all.”

Apparently, Kikaya liked his guests to laugh with him, and Scotty obliged heartily as a four-man honor guard parted, and the door to a spacious office was opened. Kikaya saw him to his seat as a male assistant inquired into his desire for nutrition and fluids. After arrangements were made, Kikaya folded his hands and spoke as if they were old friends.

“You are the son of Alex Griffin, retired vice president of security for Cowles International. And your mother was a vice president of guest relations for Cowles Entertainment, which controls, among other things, the Dream Park franchise. Is that correct?”

“Yes…” Where was this going? He hoped to God Kikaya didn’t want him to squire some grandnephews around an amusement park.

“You served in the American Union’s National Corps at the age of seventeen, and quite distinguished yourself. Your future wife Ms. Tuinukuafe won an academic work-study slot at Heinlein station when she was twenty-four, worked her way up to comanager in two years. She recruited you at that time. You spent four years at Heinlein base, and then for reasons unclear to my sources, you returned to Earth. Without, apparently, seeking a formal divorce.”

He arched an eyebrow at Scotty.

“Personal,” Scotty said. “Personal reasons.”

“I see. I hope that you can understand how a prospective employer might wish details. If you would be so kind…”

Scotty sighed. “There was an accident. I was trapped in a landslide in a leaking suit for an hour, and it… twisted my mind a bit. I thought it would be safest for me to return to Earth.”

“Because you were no longer suitable for advanced lunar maneuvers?”

“Yes.”

“And basic maneuvers?”

“For tourists. Boring.”

“I’d hoped you’d say that. Well. There is certainly no negative reflection in any of your personnel files… Although one suspects that a kindly ex-spouse might have had something to do with that.”

The skin on the back of his neck flamed. Why would this man say something like that? Another test? “If you brought me here to insult me, please keep your money, and have your shuttle take me home, your majesty.”

For another full minute the two men studied each other, then Kikaya nodded approval. “You are strong. Although your most recent assignment ended on a less than glorious note, you have an excellent reputation in the personal security community.”

Without allowing his ire to cool, Scotty answered: “Cowles has the best training simulators in the world.”

“I believe you. And I believe that your resume and pedigree make you perfect for my purpose.”

Another long pause. This time, Scotty decided not to speak, to put the burden of communication on the man on the other side of the desk.

“My only son,” Kikaya said, “has been chosen to compete in the first lunar Dream Park game. There will be training and travel and risk. I wish Ali to have a professional companion, one knowledgeable in security matters. Such a man must pass muster with Cowles Industries, and is preferably a space hand. You, young Griffin, qualify with flying colors.”

The Moon? This man wanted him to return to the Moon. Dear God. A chance to get back on the horse. But… he hadn’t been to the Moon in three years. The accident had left him with a mix of phobic responses: claustrophobia, fear of asphyxiation and variations on astrophobia or kenophobia: a fear of stars and empty spaces that might create problems during space travel. And a broken marriage. Yes, let’s not forget that little thing.

Quotes from sessions with Dr. Brenner felt harmless enough, but the stars glared, baleful in his mind. Windows were scarce on the Moon. He was not used to staring at stars. The fear of death was overwhelming and humiliating. Anchored to his field of vision, it all created a powerful phobic response.

When he’d been a kid, some feared that moving an asteroid into lunar orbit could end the world. A mile-wide chunk of rock called Aeros ghosted across a remembered starfield. His fingers gripped at the seat of his chair. He didn’t want Kikaya to see his emotions, but didn’t the man have the right, in fact the responsibility to know everything about the man to whom he entrusted his son?

No. My shame is my own. If I turn this down, I’ll do it for my own reasons.

He felt the weight of Kikaya’s stare. He could say yes, dependent on research and discussion…

“What exactly is called for?” he asked.

“There is a period of training and evaluation. Follow this with travel time, and the game itself. We can provide you with what information we have, but I’ve little doubt that your own sources are better than mine.”

He felt as if he’d inhaled a gust of minty wind. You’d see her again. “I assume you understand that any connections I do or do not have with Cowles Industries, or Dream Park, cannot be used to your son’s advantage during the playing of a game. In fact, if I am to accompany him, I see no way to do that save by actually participating in the game. That further limits the information that I can ask from those contacts.”

Thoughts, images and impressions flew more rapidly. “In fact, seeing that that is the case, you might want me to accompany him, but not participate in the game itself.” He shook his head. “In fact, I’m not sure I understand. Your son earned his place in the game… but that’s not a double ticket. How would I get into the game?”

Kikaya smiled. “You have to understand that this is more than just another game. It is also an opportunity to promote lunar tourism to the entire world. I have substantial investments on the Moon, sir. If wealth did not encourage accommodation, men would not seek it. For the son of a national ruler to have legitimately earned his place in the competition is unprecedented. Because you have no gaming experience-”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that. I grew up around Dream Park.” That cool wind blew again, this time carrying memories before it like dried leaves. Not tourist memories: behind the scenes. In the caverns beneath the park, in the engineering alcoves, working the rides and refreshment stands to earn pocket money as a teenager. Good memories.

“But you have no standing within the IFGS. I’m told we can admit you; you would have no unfair advantage. You might even be seen as a handicap.”

“Now wait a minute…”

STOP.

Dammit! Kikaya had manipulated him, pinched his competitive nerve. Damn. He could get back to the moon, see if all the hours of therapy had made a difference. His problem wouldn’t be a hindrance to his performance, so there was little downside there. He could see Kendra again…

But could he work with Prince Ali? He noted that the young man was not in the room with them.

He’d done a bit of preliminary research. Prince Ali was a brat who had cowed his father’s subordinates and even the teachers at the Foxcrest Academy, the English military school he’d haphazardly attended.

A comment made by one of his comrades, very off the cuff: The Prince lived in a cocoon, a carefully maintained illusion of superior mental and physical skills. No one dared tell him no, or defeat him at anything. He could guess that Ali might have convinced his father to invest heavily in the Moon, perceived by many of his countrymen to be a waste of precious resources.

A spoiled brat. He’d danced that dance before, and too recently. “The numbers discussed for full participation. Is that amount still on the table?”

“Yes.”

“I would need an additional 20 percent applied to the principal, and the per diem. In essence, I’m off the market for almost a year.”

“That can be accommodated.”

Damn! Well…

“Sir, I would like to provisionally agree, depending on completion of research and interaction. But… I have to admit it sounds interesting.”

“I thought that you would.”

“And I would like to meet your son.”

Most of the palace was a mixture of styles ranging from European colonial to traditional Congolese and Pan-African, celebrating the lives and accomplishments of Kikaya’s ancestors and people. The west wing was Kikaya III’s wing. It seemed to Scotty that the decor celebrated, more than anything, an exhaustive addiction to science fiction, fantasy and gaming. He noticed that Kikaya II, walking at his side, grew tight-lipped with disapproval as they moved deeper into the fannish abyss.

Complete sets of original Heinlein, Bradbury, Clarke, Le Guin, Butler, Kanazawa. Scotty recognized signatures on wall paintings from Kelly Freas, Frank Frazetta, Michael Whelan and Sue Tong.

Sculptures crowded every nook and cranny. “Your son is quite the collector.”

“Yes,” Kikaya said. “Some even have value. Purchased through agents, or by traveling to these science fiction conventions. Have you been to such a ‘convention’? The people seem… quite strange.”

“One or two. And the fans are actually pretty normal people in outside life. They just like to cut loose from time to time.”

“He is actually an artist. He has had the best teachers. These drawings are his.” Framed images of mutant sea horses, tool-using insectile creatures and strange robotic devices graced the hall opposite the Prince’s door. The King sighed, and entered without knocking.

Every wall of the room was covered with video chips, capable of slicing the wall into a hundred separate screens, or submerging the occupants into a completely immersive environment. Right now, stepping into that room was like stepping onto an Antarctic plain, even down to the blast of cold wind blowing from the ventilation system. This was a full-service gaming room, custom built by Cowles Industries or a close competitor.

“Ali,” King Kikaya said.

There was no reply. His sole heir gazed intensely into the game room’s control field, using his eyes and hands and feet to manipulate the image of a sled-dog team apparently attempting to outrun a herd of ravenous Yetis. The boy was of moderate height, whip-slender, his hair braided into rows and nodes so tight his head resembled an ear of corn. His facial features were almost excessively fine, as if carved in chocolate by a woman’s hand.

Kikaya raised his voice. “Ali!”

“In a minute, Father.”

The Prince was given his sixty seconds, and when there was still no answer forthcoming, the King clicked a “kill” code with tongue and teeth. The images froze.

Ali rattled off a string of rapid-fire Congolese, and his father replied in the same language. Then, for the first time, the boy looked directly at Scotty. “My father considers it discourteous to speak in a language a guest does not understand. I do not wish to be rude.” He said this in a voice that implied You are not needed.

“Father,” Ali said. “I was approaching the seventh level!”

Kikaya seemed to struggle to control himself, perhaps not wishing to lose his temper in front of an outsider.

“Ali,” he said. “Here is someone I want you to meet. He will travel with you on this lunar adventure.”

“The bodyguard,” Ali said, mocking. “The Moon is an assassin’s paradise, I am sure.”

King Kikaya shook his head. “How will you control this nation?” he asked. “You have sworn to me that you will be ready to accept the mantle of leader, but I do not see it, Ali.”

Ali looked up, earlier irritation giving way to a far more conciliatory tone. “Father. I swear to you that I will fulfill my duties. Until then, I don’t understand why you criticize my little entertainments.”

“And your past follies?

Scotty had an odd feeling, almost as if he, as a commoner, was too unimportant for these two to edit themselves.

“Like England’s Henry,” Ali smiled. When his father did not reply, Ali turned again to Scotty. “Do you know your Shakespeare?”

“Henry set a trap for his father’s enemies by pretending dissipation.” He paused. “Just call me Falstaff. We’ll get along fine.”

Ali raised a royal eyebrow. “Indeed?”

Kikaya wagged his leonine head. “My son, the time for kings is past in this world. Our people want democracy.”

With a last regretful look at the screens before him, Kikaya III slipped off his mesh cap and goggles, and stood to face his father. The boy was slender, whipcord strong and straight. It seemed to Scotty that the monarch was struggling to maintain a stern demeanor.

Did Kikaya remind his father of his own youthful dreams, his own efforts to measure up to paternal demands?

Scotty had read up. Kikaya II’s life had been filled with war and intense political action. His son, in comparison, had been given the world. There had been rumors of tension between father and son… and now he understood. Nineteen-year-old Ali was a spoiled brat, and Daddy was afraid that, when his time came to take power, the boy would be eaten alive.

Every father wants his son to have the advantages he himself was denied. But then, if you provide those advantages, you risk producing a weakling. The core parental paradox.

Ali was speaking to his father, but in another way, he seemed to be talking to himself. “Father… all my life I have awaited the moment when you felt I was ready to serve my people. I hope you live to be two hundred, but I know that when the time comes, I will be a good king. The last king of Kikaya.”

“And what of your own firstborn?”

“He will be raised to wealth, power and privilege… but not a throne. Our family has vast holdings. That will have to be enough.”

It was the right answer, but felt rehearsed. So the grandson wouldn’t be king. Scotty silently bet himself that the kid would go for “President for Life.” What the hell-every other dictator did.

Kikaya II sighed. “You see what concerns me, Mr. Griffin. My son does not appreciate the truth of power. It is all a game to him. I hope that this trip will be the end of one phase of his life, and the beginning of another.”

“Sir,” Scotty said. “I’m sure the Prince will be everything you wish, and more.” He tried to detect a change in expression on Ali’s part. Any hint of his attitudes and emotions. Not much: The kid was a cipher.

Kikaya spoke first. “You need to get to know this man,” he said. “He has agreed to accompany you during your training, transportation and during the game itself.”

Finally, that caught Ali’s intention. “So? You would use your influence to put an anchor around my neck? You bring this American thug here, ram him down the-” Ali lapsed into Congolese again, and his father did the same.

Scotty held up his hand. “Pardon? May the American thug interject a few words?”

Ali whipped his head around, squinting with anger. “By all means.”

“Well, where I come from, ‘American thug’ is a compliment, and I’ll take it as such.” There, that should confuse him. “The truth is that I grew up at Dream Park. My father was head of security, my mother chief of guest relations.”

“Really?” Ali seemed intrigued in spite of himself.

“Have you been to California Dream Park?”

“Of course. In disguise, four times.”

“And did you go to the Santa’s Workshop Adventure?”

“Yes, a minor game, but entertaining.”

“Well, I was the third elf, the one who says: ‘Who kidnapped Santa?’ I was only eight years old at the time, and the kid who was supposed to play the role got the flu. Mom got me in.”

Ali stared at Scotty, and then laughed uproariously. “You are an elf! And a bodyguard as well?”

“Yes, and a Luny. I’ve been around.”

Ali’s eyes widened. “You’ve been to the Moon? And you know gaming?” Scotty watched the kid’s gears spin. “Perhaps… perhaps you are not an anchor after all. Father,” he said, “I would like to have breakfast with this man. Will you leave us together to talk?”

Kikaya smiled approval at Scotty. I think you will do fine, that expression said. He shook Scotty’s hand, and said in a low voice, “Please. He is my only son. Convince him. Protect him. Please.”

They locked eyes for a moment, not monarch and commoner, but two men with a common interest: the health and safety of a boy. “If I take the job,” Scotty said, “he’s safe. I promise.”

“Take the job, Mr. Griffin,” Kikaya said. Then nodded to his son, and left the room

Ali and Scotty faced each other without speaking for a moment, then the boy said: “Have you ever had an ostrich omelet?”

“Never.”

“Our chef makes them with little fish from Lake Victoria, garnished with a local onion found nowhere else in the world, and forbidden to export. Will you join me, Mr. Griffin?”

Scotty smiled. “Only if you’ll call me Scotty.”

“Yes,” the boy said. “Scotty. And you may call me… Prince Ali.”

A pause, and then Ali broke into laughter, and Scotty followed. And at that moment, he decided he liked the kid, and would take the job.

October 10, 2085

In any modern society, privacy is one of the most prized commodities. This was as true on Luna as anywhere else. More so, perhaps, as every spoonful of water or breath of air was produced or managed by a central processor, and every human being was tracked at all times.

As a result, the ability to promise secure communications between Earth and Moon was a lucrative business, birthing a half-dozen communication streams boasting high-level encryption and guarantees of hack-free voice- and facemail.

Doug Frost sat in his cubical, enjoying the fruits of such privacy. But even with guarantees, the current communication was conducted with coded language and careful tones.

The face on the screen was a man’s. Then it shifted and became a woman’s. The skin tone shifted to black, and then Asian. As it did, the vocal tones shifted as well. There was simply no telling who or what a “Shotz” actually was. Frost’s sources speculated that he was a man, but there was no way to be certain. All they knew beyond question was that a person known as “Shotz” was Shotz, leader of a group called Neutral Moresnot, the most successful practitioners of a very specialized criminal profession. Kidnapping had been big business for hundreds of years, and the Moresnot group was reliable, conducting twenty high-profile extractions a year, usually leaving little trace, and always demanding high fees.

“You have received all data?” Doug said.

The Chinese woman on screen smiled. Was that a real interpretation of Shotz’s mood? He had no idea at all. “Yes.”

“And were there any last-minute concerns? I’m not certain why you requested this unscheduled conversation.”

“It has to do with a passenger list,” Shotz said. “Of course, we would be interested in anyone traveling with our… person of interest.”

“Of course.”

“And we see that he is traveling with a man named Scott Griffin. Are you familiar with this person?”

“No,” Doug said. “Should I be?”

“Our records show that he was married to the current Chief of Operations, Kendra Griffin.” The Asian woman was morphing, melting into a dark-skinned Latina.

“Was? She still wears his name?” Many western women could not wait to shed their former husband’s names, once the divorce was concluded. “Is that a problem?”

“It is a matter of some interest. His path crossed ours several months ago. He interfered in an operation of substantial value. He harmed a valued associate.”

“Will that cause a problem? I was assured that you were professional. Surely revenge-”

Shotz cut him off. “Not at all. But he is competent. And therefore dangerous. On the other hand, a personal connection between this man Griffin and his ex-wife might help us to maintain control. She has kept his name. Perhaps there are still feelings.”

The voice was certainly synthesized, as was the visual image, but something about the conversation was chilling. “We want no unneccessary violence,” Doug said. “Everything is in place, and the situation will be volatile enough as things stand. We need no complications.”

“There will be none,” Shotz said. “In fact, I think that this man Griffin’s presence might actually work to our advantage. To tell you truthfully, my… associates and I would enjoy the chance to deal with this man.”

“Is there anything else?”

“No. Everything is on track. The remainder of the monies are to be paid into our accounts by the end of the month. You have arranged for our equipment?”

“Yes.” Fabrication of gear that could not be brought through lunar customs. Acquisition of funds through expatriot groups on Earth. Identification of an effective organization capable of carrying out a bizarre and demanding plan. Contact with revolutionary forces within the Republic of Kikaya itself…

Yes, they had accomplished miracles over the last months. Exactly what was required if they were to have any chance of achieving the miracle to come.

Freedom for his people.

A thin mist of perspiration blossomed on the back of Doug’s neck as the reality of their situation finally descended upon him.

“Is there… something wrong?” Shotz asked. “Her” face was shifting again. Morphing into a more masculine form.

Doug felt it: He had paused too long. “Everything is fine. I am just eager for it to begin.”

The screen image smiled. “Soon, my friend. All that is required is for both of us to perform as agreed. If we do this thing, then in a few short weeks, we change the world.”

The image faded away, the connection broken. Yes, indeed. In a few short weeks, the world would be changed.

Now, it was either succeed, or…

Or what? Death? Dishonor? Incarceration? He was not even certain of the laws they would be violating.

Well, if they did not proceed, he was certain that there would be hard, serious men and women from around the world and across the solar system who would be more than happy to inform him. At painful length.

The thing, then, was not to fail.

October 25, 2085

The former Kendra Tuinukuafe, now Kendra Griffin, opened her eyes. She nestled naked in the midst of a wide, wide hammock, peering up through her wavering water shield to the half-Earth visible above. The walls were more than four meters high, decorated from floor to ceiling with little ledges and picture frames. Her home looked a bit like a hobbit house, crammed with books and mementos, some shipped up from Earth, others fabricated or acquired in the intervening years. It was, of course, a hole in the ground. Radiation was a problem on the Moon.

Her alarm trilled again, pulling her to full wakefulness just as the wake-up lights began to rise.

“Right on time.” She yawned heartily and rolled out of the hammock, landing lightly. Now the hammock cleared her head by nearly a meter. Her broad shoulders and upper back, webbed with flyer’s muscle, flared almost like wings, narrowing her waist.

She tocked her tongue, and spoke.

“Audio live,” she said.

Her assistant’s hologram appeared. Chris Foxworthy was tall, prematurely balding, muscularly self-assured, and carried himself with an air most interpreted as “distant.” He was staring right through her, understandable since she hadn’t engaged the live feed. People were always a little stiff when speaking to avatars.

“Boss,” Chris said.

“Chris. I have time for coffee?” Gram for gram, her Colombian was Luna’s most expensive legal luxury.

“Always,” Chris said.

Kendra yawned wider as she approached the coffeemaker. Judging by the control lights and fragrant cloud of steam, it was already preparing a cup.

She sniffed deeply; even the smell of the coffee cleared cobwebs from her mind. “Mmmm. Yummy.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a cruel streak?”

“On the hour.” Steaming dark fluid poured sluggishly into the cup. Even at lowest pressure, some still slopped up over the edge. She waited for it to stop, then lifted the cup and sipped. Heaven. “So… how are the polls runnning?”

“You’re up ten points on McCauley, but that still makes me nervous with a month ’til the election.”

“Me, too. What’s on the dock today?”

“Tons. We’ve got a load of oranges and finger bananas in from Clavius.”

“We’re trading…?”

“Spare gigawatts from the Bullwinkle array and the Tsiolkovsky power plant. Fifty gigs over the next month. Falling Angels is dropping a load of foamed steel to complete the dorms,” Chris said.

Kendra frowned. “Isn’t that cutting it a little close?”

Chris shook his head. “Temporary shelters-steel skeleton, spray-foam skin, webbed furniture… We’ll make our dates. Might be a little spare, but short-timers only log sleep and shower time in their rooms. Too busy seeing the sights.” Chris waited patiently for his boss as she threw some clothes on, prepping as she went. She bounced through each step.

Kendra looked in the mirror. “Suitable,” she said, then tocked her tongue again and raised her voice. “Video live.”

“Ah, there you are,” Chris said. “Nice slacks.”

Tck. “Call the car,” she said, summoning a shuttle. “Stack my calls, Chris. I’ll have to fit them in around my duties.”

“No problem.”

The living room’s front door opened into a sealed tunnel. Neither Kendra nor anyone else at Heinlein owned a private vehicle. She wasn’t certain such a thing really existed on all of Luna.

The tunnel was actually the connecting node for the base shuttle system. As she watched, one of the golden tube-cars flashed to the rail outside her house, then decelerated toward the branch line. Her outer door slid open, the car entered, the door shut. The pressure coupling sealed itself to the pod, and her inner door opened.

Kendra seated herself, strapped in, and waited for the door to seal. Once all three safety lights went green, she murmured “Landing pad,” and the pod rolled out of her garage. Accelerated by magnetic pulses, it circled her home twice. After reaching full speed, it joined the traffic flow on the main line.

Her thoughts ranged to plant management, and political connections to other colonies. She looked up at the Earth’s misty blue disk. There was one very particular Earthling heading her way. Soon. And what will that do to your life, Kendra?

Why didn’t you change your name? Because nobody can pronounce Tuinukuafe?

“So… what’s on the docket today?”

“Talos asteroid. We’re bartering hybrid seeds for ore. Then we have a bottleneck at Fabrication.”

That was Toby McCauley’s work. On the surface, it was just a disagreement about apportionment of the floating labor pool. In reality, it was an attempt to make Kendra look bad. And it could work.

“I want you to look into their energy usage. Someone’s been getting a load of overtime there. We should be able to make the point that just because McCauley has trade rights with anyone willing to negotiate, that hardly guarantees priority access to manpower.”

If McCauley could make her the bad guy, make it look as if she was stifling free trade and entrepreneurship, even if he never raised the subject in open debate, conversation in the blue-collar lounges would be ugly, and affect voting. On the other hand, if she allowed him to dominate the labor pool, it would seem she was siding with him against Heinlein’s major investors, who wanted a tighter rein on all financial activity.

A nice bind. Well done, Toby.

“Look,” Kendra said. “There’s nothing we can do about that. Everyone’s fighting over the same resources. Nothing special here…”

Her phone began to beep. “I have to take this,” she said.

The view bubble above her flickered into a screen. Scenery whizzed past at a kilometer per second. Any faster and the little pods would rise into orbit.

“Mom! Dad!” she said.

Millicent was a tall black woman just past sixty. Smiling hollowed her cheekbones. Despite the separation, Kendra still called her “Mom.”

“Sweetie. Glad we could get you. Alex, is Scotty online?”

The image divided. One at a time, the faces of her former family: Millicent, Alex and Scotty. Kendra had little blood family. It was one of the reasons living on the Moon didn’t sting. Meeting Scotty, and marrying into his clan, had been wonderful. Even after the divorce his folks had made it clear they still loved her. That was part of the reason the next month was going to be stressful.

No matter what anyone said, they had to be hoping.

Was she?

“Have him right here,” Alex Griffin said. His hair was gray, his face long, edging toward jowls.

“Hey, Kendra.” Scotty seemed a little stressed. None of their conversations since the split had been easy, but this was something different.

“So,” Kendra said. “How’s the training going?” She raised her voice. “ Tck. Audio out.”

The hologram went mute. Chris canted his head sideways, pretended to pout.

There was a perceptible lag, and then Scotty answered. “Craziness, but winding down. We lost a couple to the first days of zero gee. They’re on drugs. I’ve been demonstrating the exercise routines. I’ve figured out that funny yoga that keeps your core muscles hard, but my client is having trouble with that. He can’t learn the lunar shuffle until we’re actually on the Moon.”

Alex Griffin laughed knowingly. Kendra missed that warm laughter. Her own father had been austere and demanding, descended from a line of Tongan war chiefs. “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”

“Not exactly danger…” Scotty drifted for a moment, and then focused on them again. “Listen, this is going to be great. We’ll all be together for the first time in what… seven years?”

“You’re sure your client is good with that?” Alex asked.

Scotty said, “I’ll see him through the game. Afterward, Foley Mason’s meeting us. He’ll escort my client back to Earth.”

“He’s a good man,” Alex said. “Did I ever tell you about the time in Cairo…?”

“This is expensive, Alex,” Millicent chided gently. “Old war stories later, please.”

“We can listen to all of them again when I see you,” Scotty said. “I can find plenty to do aboard ship to keep me busy for two weeks until you two can get up…”

“And then it’s party time,” Kendra said.

Once upon a time, there had been plans to get Scotty’s folks to the Moon. One big happy family, with the low gee offering another decade of life. But things kept getting in the way, and now there seemed little hope. “How are things there, Mom?” Her voice might have been just a little too careful.

“Fine, dear,” Millicent said. “Just some more tests, and I’ll be through the first round of chemo. There’s a new… I’m not sure, some kind of nanotech, exploiting genetic instability in the cancer cells.” Despite her optimistic tone Millicent’s voice stumbled, just a bit, on the word “cancer.”

Alex finally interrupted the uneasy silence that followed. “The doctor’s not worried, so I’m not going to be. We’ll be there.”

“All right,” Kendra said, then squinted through the window. “I’m coming up on the dock. Good talking to you-can we try again in a couple of days?”

Millicent squinted at her. “Everything all right, darling?”

Kendra sighed. “I just… miss you all.” She forced herself to smile, and focused on her adopted parents. “Mom, Dad-let me have a minute with Scotty, would you?”

“Sure, hon,” Millicent said.

Alex nodded. “We’ll talk next week.”

The two older folks winked off. Scotty alone remained.

“So… how are you, really?” she asked. “Are you ready for this?”

“I’m heading up,” he said. “I wouldn’t if I had any doubts.”

“Nightmares?”

“Got them under control. How about you, hon?”

That question caught her off guard. “What?”

“How are the nightmares?”

She felt as if he’d knocked the air out of her chest. “That’s not fair, Scotty.”

“Why not? You’ve certainly spent enough time worried about my welfare.”

“You ran away, Scotty.” Almost before the words crossed her lips, she regretted them.

Scotty laughed without humor. “I wasn’t going to be much good to anyone up there, least of all you. I didn’t need to be a quarter-million miles from Earth to work a desk job.”

After the accident, that would have been about all he was qualified for, too. No more surface travel. No vast, razor-like moonscapes and pinpoint stars for Scotty. Life here was hard enough without stress-induced phobias. All the headshrinks agreed that he should go home. Even if it cost a damned fine marriage.

“Are people still talking? If so, I’m sorry.” A pause. “I miss you. And that’s the truth.”

“Me, too. There really hasn’t been anyone much…” She trailed off. Dammit, she didn’t have to explain herself. Lunar relationships were a lot like the ones that formed in Antarctic stations: intense and temporary. Human beings did the best they could. But even given the circumstances, Kendra had always thought they had something special. Something that might have endured, even if they’d had to go to Earth to nurture it.

She felt her eyes mist, and wanted off the line before she wiped them in front of him. “I don’t have time for this right now. Let’s back off before we start fighting.”

He nodded. “I’ll be up there soon. We’ll get it all worked out. Promise.”

She sighed, and managed to smile. “We’d better. I can still kick your butt in thumb-wrestling.”

“Only if you cheat.”

They shared a time-delayed laugh, and the mood genuinely lightened. A good point to end things, while they were still smiling. “Bye, Earthman.”

“Bye, Moonmaid.”

The line winked off.

November 5, 2085

The lander arrived precisely on time: a spiderlegged caterpillar settling in a fountain of dust on a wide red double-spiral target pad. The shuttlecar rolled up against its side. Automated flanges locked into place. The doors opened in sequence, three sets, sealing behind the passengers as they boarded a car that looked like a silver sausage. The car ran them to the base airlock and another triple airlock.

At first Kendra saw only two exceptionally statuesque women striding down the ramp, one Asian with straight black shoulder-length hair, the other European with brilliant red hair of similar length and texture. Both were conspicuously muscular with fashionable fat padding. Then they stepped apart, revealing a tiny man-no more than five foot two-walking just behind them as if they were a royal guard.

Even in rumpled travel clothes, Xavier radiated theatricality. Somehow he transformed his typical newbie’s lunar clumsiness into performance art, bouncing and then awkwardly catching his balance with every other step. His escorts were better at it.

Still, she could tell that he struggled to remain unimpressed by his surroundings.

“Mr. Xavier?” Kendra asked.

“Just Xavier, please.” He was beautiful for a man, shaven-headed, with blond eyebrows capping a delicate face. His eyes were a brilliant blue, intense and intelligent. He was small-boned, barely rising to her shoulder, but already flirting with her. “My assistants are Wu Lin and Magique. Magique does not speak.”

“Welcome to Heinlein base,” Kendra said.

Xavier’s angelic little face split in a smile. “I have to admit I thought I’d been everywhere and seen everything. These last weeks have opened my eyes.”

Kendra and her holographic assistant exchanged an expression of surprise.

Kendra said, “We have a pretty tight schedule today, but we want to get you to the game center, and then to your rooms.”

He nodded. “That would be fine.”

They waited for the luggage pods to be loaded onto their vehicle, and then boarded a tube-car for the gaming center.

“I understand that we’ll have privacy?”

“Yes. Much nicer than the dormitories,” Kendra said. “Your own private crater.”

His answering smile was pornographic. “Perhaps you’d care to show it to me.”

“One crater’s pretty much like another,” she kept her voice light and pleasant. “Not luxurious, but hopefully adequate.”

He was staring out through the glass partition at glare-white and coal-black scenery. “Luxury is not imperative. My requirement is seclusion.”

“I’ve heard that gaming parties tend to run wild…”

He shook his small, perfectly formed head. “Not what you think. I can become… intensely emotional when I game. Lamps and chairs and waitrons and cleaner mechs can be at great risk. There is often… a bit of breakage. ‘To create you must first destroy.’ I believe Picasso said that.”

“‘ Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!’” She paused, then when Wu Lin seemed puzzled, added, “Dr. Seuss said that.”

Magique choked on a silent giggle. Xavier’s thin lips curled up in a smile.

“At any rate,” Kendra said, “if space is what you need, we have plenty of it.”

“So… Dr. Seuss,” Xavier said, nodding as if she had confirmed something. “Have you children?”

“No.”

“Married?”

Kendra said, “Once upon a time.”

The red-haired Magique smirked. She was gorgeous, and muscular with a fatty sheath, in the current European Union Fit/Fat style. The goal was to maintain a perfect blood pressure and immune profile, with the roundest curves possible. She signed to Wu Lin with her plump hands. Wu Lin giggled.

“How long have you been up here?” Xavier asked.

“Seven years.”

“And the ratio of women to men…?”

“We’re outnumbered. As you must know.” Kendra sighed. “I’m fine, thanks. No help needed on that front. While we’re at it, may I ask…? Magique said something that triggered merriment.”

Wu Lin nodded. “She said you look like a twentieth-century fitness model.” The redhead nodded happy agreement.

The trio radiated a cozy, slightly predatory sensuality. Kendra couldn’t resist visualizing a zero-gee anaconda ball, and suppressed a chill of revulsion. Maybe they just thought they were being polite, assuming she’d feel rejected without an invitation to the fun and games. Fortunately, they had reached their destination, and she was able to change the subject.

The Game Center was a dome, of course, the ceiling five meters high. The last few workers were still nipping and tucking, and the smell of fresh paint still tinged the air. Xavier bounced onto the central stage, stopped and looked around himself. He said, “Very similar to the Euro Dream Park unit.”

He waved his hands in an input field, and it calibrated. She’d thought she’d be edging her way out the door, but Xavier’s manner had become more professional the instant he began manipulating alien forms like stringless marionettes. His annoying, smarmy persona faded, and in its place appeared a virtuoso performer. Despite her irritation, she found the transformation fascinating.

A circular metal stage in the center of the room glowed, and a ball of yellow light levitated above it. Xavier bounced up the two steps to the platform. As he did, an insectoid alien bounded into the floating light field. When the little man shifted position, the insect followed his motions precisely. It wore a bandolier hung with weapons shaped to its big padded hands. It moved with an oddly disjointed grace. When Kendra glanced over at Xavier, he was performing the same odd dance.

Wu Lin doffed her shawl and joined him on the stage. In immediate response, a second creature appeared in the hovering light beside him.

Magique manipulated the controls, and suddenly six aliens crowded the field. She joined them onstage, and now there were nine. Somehow they interacted with each other as if they were actually manipulated by nine different puppeteers: talking, rolling, jumping… Xavier and his assistants lending eccentric mime-like precision to their roles, populating an entire imaginary hive with a succession of simple shrugs and shoulder hunches.

Kendra was open-mouthed with amazement. These were masters at play. No… at work. They were calibrating the equipment, accustoming themselves to the reduced gravity. She felt honored to witness such a masterful display.

Xavier stopped, and stepped down from the platform. For all the exertion, she noted that his breathing was barely elevated. His eyes seemed distant. “Tomorrow, we’ll start looping the movement for the holos, the virt, and the bots. We’ll need to meet with the local players by day after. The gamers arrive in eight days.”

“Yes. Six P.M. adjusted local time.”

He mused. “NPCs arrive thirty hours earlier. We’ll need to be ready. I want a sleep cycle adjusted for Montreal winters.”

“Polarized dome, or artificial lighting? Whichever you prefer.”

She couldn’t help it-she was actually quite impressed by the little man’s artistic focus. Subtract the egotism, and despite his height she might have found him appealing.

He yawned. “I’d like to see where I’m sleeping now.”

“May I ask a personal question?”

“I did,” Xavier laughed. “Proceed.”

“Your father is still alive, isn’t he?”

He pressed his lips together tightly. “Yes.”

She paused, trying to work out the right way to ask the next question.

“Was he… worried about his calculations? The Aeros asteroid?”

His face tightened as well. “That’s one thing he never doubted. Did you? You had to have been… what… seven years old?”

“I still remember,” she said. “Everyone frightened. Your dad bounced this asteroid out of its course. It came within ten thousand miles of Earth. Something could have gone wrong. We can’t survive without Earth-”

“Not Dad. Not ever.” His smile was entirely too bright.

“I remember,” she said. “Yes. Well… shall we take a look at the maze itself?”

“Give us a few moments first, would you?”

Kendra nodded, and left them.

The twins were in the main Arrivals lounge a half hour prior to the shuttle’s drop from orbit. The silver and red capsule flexed its crab-like legs and blew a cloud of lunar dust against the view windows, then settled down as the pressure tunnel wriggled out like a metal snake and locked to its side. Five minutes later, the passengers disembarked and passed through the pressure locks into customs, where they were given opportunities to declare valuables. There were thirty-two passengers on this flight, six members of the press, twenty tourists, and six Lunies returning from mandatory Earth furlough.

The press declared their vid gear, Lunies declared luxury items ferried back from L5 or planet Earth, and most of the tourists declared only enough to deflect curiosity. On the way home, they’d have moon rocks and other mementos, but few carried anything worthy of note.

This was particularly true of the men and one cold-eyed woman who all wore Eddington Crater Tour buttons.

“Welcome,” Thomas said to the largest of them, a man he knew only as Shotz. “I hope the trip was pleasant.”

“All but the last few minutes,” Shotz said. His voice sounded like metal against metal. “The captain seemed to find it amusing to postpone deceleration until the last moment.”

If you didn’t do that, you ran out of fuel. Thomas didn’t say so.

The woman, a beefy redhead with piercing blue eyes, flexed her full red lips into a smile. “It would be interesting to have words with him.” Shotz turned his head slowly, gave her a disapproving glare. “Later,” she amended.

Another eleven quiet, cool-eyed men were clustered around these two. Thirteen in all. Thomas waited to see if any of them would initiate a conversation. It only took ten seconds to remind himself that these people were not here for words.

“Well. It is good to see you. Before your tour, we’ve arranged the interview you requested.”

“Mr. McCauley?” Shotz asked. Nothing wrong with using the name. Little remained a secret for long on the Moon. Anyone who cared to look would know that these people had visited the Fabrication hutch.

The why and the how much of their visit, on the other hand, could remain mysterious.

The Brothers Frost led their very special guests to luggage claim, and from there to the maglev system. A car was just pulling out as they arrived at the platform, but there was nothing to worry about: Another would be along within ten minutes.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

November 13, 2085

Considering everything that happened, and what the events of the Moon Maze Game came to symbolize, it is surprising that more lies aren’t told about how and when it all began.

In one sense, it all began on November 12, 2085, when the first load of gamers and tourists appeared at Heinlein pad number 8, on the shuttle from Lagrange Two.

The popular lie would be that it arrived with no fanfare, that nonessential tasks from Clavius to Mount Bullwinkle had not ground to a halt as Lunatics paused to watch the shuttle sink into a bloom of moondust.

The lie would be that the gamers and Non-Player Characters were not completely awed by their reception, reduced to appreciative murmurs even after transit in the shuttle. And chiefest among those attempting to remain nonchalant was Wayne Gibson.

Gibson had been unable to sleep at all for the last thirty-six hours, even knowing how desperately valuable dream time would be over the coming days.

He should have cocooned himself in his cabin. He should have wired himself into a d-web and let the ship computer coax him down into healing slumber. But then he couldn’t have watched the screens and haunted the shuttle’s narrow corridors and annoyed the pilots.

If he’d slept, he couldn’t have hung out with the other gamers and NPCs in the undersized lounge-and protocol be damned! There would be plenty of time to play prima donna once they touched down.

And what a group they were! The midsized Spider-class shuttle was snug, but up at the L2 point, they’d had a little time to just party and relax together.

As soon as the juddering had stopped, the captain’s voice sounded over the ship intercom, and his face appeared floating in the air above their webbed cots.

“And that little pull you’re feeling is all the gravity we’ve got in this neck of the woods. I want to welcome you all to Luna, Heinlein base, named for the twentieth-century science fiction author. If this is your final destination, I invite you to pick up your luggage at the immigration station. Hey! That kinda rhymes.”

Wayne grinned to himself, wondering how many times the captain had retreaded that lame little joke. It didn’t matter. All he wanted was a chance to get up and actually put his feet on… well, if not lunar soil, at least lunar concrete.

“And if you’re continuing on to one of the other bases… well, you still need to go through immigration. Your luggage will be examined separately, and taken to your transportation, whatever that may be. Welcome to Luna!”

The Fasten Your Web sign dimmed. All over the shuttle air seals audibly popped. The walls vibrated with cheers, his own louder than most.

You’re on the friggin’ Moon! The voice in his head boomed, still amazed.

Even after the invitation, after grueling weeks of training, after liftoff from Earth in the orbiter craft and the intervening stay at the L2 Hilton… some part of him still couldn’t believe it, had been holding his emotions in check.

You’re on the Moon.

He was almost afraid to stand up, so powerful was the unexpected wave of emotion. Why? Why did he feel so gut-slammed by all of this?

Angelique Chan, his beautiful room-if-not-bunkmate peered down over the edge of the upper berth and grinned at him. “Because you’ve looked at it all your life, silly.”

“How do you do that?” he asked, shaking his head.

Her smile became even more mysterious. Even upside down, her lustrous hair had taken its own sweet time descending to fringe her face. “Trade secrets. I tell you, and you tell two friends, and pretty soon no one needs me anymore.”

She performed a flipping roll-over only a Cirque du Soleil contortionist could ever have managed on Earth. She landed bouncing on her heels, taking a moment to catch her balance.

“Whoa!” She crouched, settled and then spun to face him. “Are we ready for this?”

“We’ve come an awful long way if we’re not,” he said.

“No… you don’t understand. You really don’t.”

“Then teach me,” he said.

“Everything until this moment? Just preparation.” She came near enough that he could feel her breath on his face, and smell its sweetness. “Everything we say, everything we do is about to be judged. Everyone is watching for advantage. The training is over-”

“But the game doesn’t start until tomorrow-”

“No!” she said fiercely, and grabbed his shoulders. “The game starts now, do you understand? Everything you see and hear that comes from another gamer, or a bribed NPC-”

“What?”

She scrunched up her face. “You’ve got to be kidding me. An NPC who takes a ‘suggestion’ from an associate of this gamer or that Game Master might be fined, or blackballed, but the game’s still lost. There is only one first lunar game, and I wouldn’t put anything past any of them.”

“You brought me here to distract the Man,” he said. “But you’re going to take my advice, too. I’ve come too far to shut my mouth.”

Her jaw worked, then tightened. She was listening.

“Too much emotion. Too much old history. Xavier will want to know that he beat us clean. Above board. I’d bet my socks on it.”

They’d had this conversation before. And until or unless there was definite evidence either way, they’d have it again. “Maybe,” she finally conceded. “Perhaps. We’ll see.”

Two hours later the music and merriment came to an end. The bald little man called Lord Xavier herded Scotty and the other gamers down a gleaming narrow hallway into a neighboring room. It was another cavernous chamber, lightly decorated, and Scotty had the sense that it was a storage unit of some kind, hastily reconfigured to resemble a hangar.

A thirty-foot grayish metal sphere balanced on four telescoping legs. The surface was covered with little flaps, and at the lowest edge a six-foot door opened onto a ramp.

At the base of the ramp, Xavier turned and faced them. “I present the Cavorite sphere, built to the professor’s specifications. This is the beginning of your adventure. It will take you ten days to make the lunar passage. We will be in contact with you during that time, thanks to our great friend Mr. Tesla. I wish you Godspeed, and good luck.”

He soberly shook each of their hands as they walked the ramp. The small hand within the white glove was soft and warm. Lord Xavier’s eyes were very clear, bright blue and twinkled with mirth. He paused for a moment with Scotty. “Commander Griffin,” he said gravely. “You are not known to me, but your father was. A mighty warrior, and I believe he was simply known as ‘The Griffin,’ was he not? In fact, I know that he distinguished himself highly on missions for my department, and I expect no less from his son.”

Scotty bowed. “He set a very high standard indeed. I will endeavor not to shame him.” And then passed up the ramp.

What was that about? Certainly giving Scotty more reinforcement about his role… the Non-Player Characters had circulated the room, casually mentioning aspects of the players’ backstory, allowing them to springboard their role-playing off the NPCs. A general framework for improvisation, their names and personal histories worked into their new identities.

Interesting. He’d been told to expect that. But the reference to his father “The Griffin” implied that Xavier knew exactly who he was. Did he know the Prince’s true identity as well?

The question was answered a moment later. “Prince Ali,” he said to Scotty’s charge. “You have traveled far, all the way from the Republic of Kikaya, to partake in our adventure. Now you travel farther still. Salaam Alaykum.”

“Wa Alaykum As-Salaam,” Ali replied courteously. But when Scotty met his eyes, it was clear that the young man was worried. Later, Scotty would reassure him. Surely, there was no safer place for Prince Kikaya than Heinlein base.

They marched through the door… and into a maze of plastic struts. Assistants hustled them off to the side, so that they would not obstruct the doorway. From this position, he saw that the great curving wall was a hologram-assisted facade. When the last gamer and NPC was aboard, the door was closed, and the assistants gave a collective sigh of relief.

“We’re off!” quoth a plump, charming redhead. Scotty noticed that she seemed rather attached to Wayne, who himself was linked to Angelique Chan. “Game time is over, you are all off-duty until nine tomorrow morning. Please follow your escorts to your lodgings, where you will find your personal gear already stowed. If you have any needs, please let us know. Game starts at ten tomorrow morning, and until that time no cameras or recording devices will invade your privacy.” Again, she glanced significantly at Wayne. Her eyes were liquid heat.

A lunar hookup. Sweet.

“So…,” Angelique said. “What is happening now? I mean in game time?”

“Look for yourself,” the redhead said.

She clapped her hands and the bare wall blossomed. In the void, a crowd waving British flags cheered as a Cavorite sphere lifted off from the middle of Piccadilly Circus. Like a feather caught in an updraft it drifted into the sky, accelerating until it was swallowed by clouds.

“Ten days of game time will be condensed into ten hours of real time. A clock on the screen will give viewers on Earth and even here on the Moon a countdown to tomorrow’s game. We had to make a choice: either reduce the number of hours it takes for a sphere to reach the Moon, or use time-lapse. We chose time-lapse. Any other questions?”

She was so bright and perky, and it all seemed so reasonable, that he relaxed. Fine. The game aspect of all of this was well in hand.

Scotty Griffin checked himself and Ali into guest dorm 312, the third floor of a prefab hutch set in a small crater a klick south of Heinlein station’s central bubble. The main facility had good accommodations, and frankly he would have preferred that. Security felt better there. On the other hand, on the Moon the harsh external conditions were a security shield all in themselves. Trekking from dome to dome without proper training was like tap-dancing on a tightrope. Paparazzi would be at a minimum, and frankly there hadn’t been a lot of attention for Ali at the party, which had annoyed his primary no end.

Scotty had to laugh. So far, even considering the training and preparation, this had been pretty easy, and in fact, a lot of fun. He had completed basic space training years before, but old Kikaya paid very well for him to do the kiddie version again from scratch. When this was all over he’d have enough money to take two years off. Do almost anything he wanted…

What he wanted right now was to disappear into makeup, or other anonymity. It was inevitable that silly things would happen during the game, and those silly things would be used against Kendra in the election. Well, she was right about one thing: The miners and construction hands loved their “last of the old-time pioneer” personas. They liked loners, sure, but they liked winners even more.

He was going to give them one. That would be the way to do it. He was going to win the damned game. At the very least, he wasn’t coming in last. That would be fine for a first-time gamer playing at this level. Just don’t come in last.

Burdened by the first sense of unease he’d had since landing, Scotty went through his mental checklist in preparation for sleep.

“Moonman,” Ali said.

Scotty didn’t turn. “Here.”

“We have arrived,” Ali said. “All throughout our training, I sensed that you could not take things with complete seriousness.”

“Your safety I take seriously. The game… well, it’s a game.”

“Not to me,” Ali said. “You promised that once we arrived, you would, as you said, ‘get into it.’ Well. We are here. Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“‘Gotten into it.’”

“I’m doing fine,” Scotty said. “My primary job is protection. My secondary is to see that the client enjoys himself. We’ll be fine.”

“And how will you protect me if you are killed out?” His voice was challenging. “And that is what will happen, if you are not completely present.”

There it was again, a touch of imperious presumption that had begun creeping back in on the way to Luna, a reminder that Ali was a prince, and Scotty a pauper. While he suspected that this was just a way of dealing with a nervous stomach, Scotty fought to avoid irritation. “I always, under all circumstances, do my level best to avoid dying.”

Ali held his eyes for a beat, and then nodded. “Good. Please do that.” Something in the Prince’s face said he’d be relieved if Scotty was killed out of the game. After all, bodyguards were his father’s idea. With Scotty dead, Ali could concentrate on winning.

0730 hours, November 14, 2085

Wayne awakened slowly, eeling over in his mesh to find the previous evening’s chubby and improbably agile entertainment already awake, her face hovering just inches above his.

She leaned forward, red hair dangling. She rubbed his pointy nose with her stubby one, and kissed him lightly. “Hey there, sweet stuff,” Darla said. He placed his hands against her hips and pressed her against him, wiggling experimentally. It was a nice fit.

“Not now,” she said, then closed her mouth and chewed at the corner of her lip.

He knew that expression. And not later, either. Playtime was over. Maybe after the game. If you still want me. He believed that she had enjoyed their evening together. She had certainly displayed all the appropriate signs.

But… that little flash of insecurity in her smile. Gaming relationships could be brief and intense. He was a celebrity, and despite the current fashion for healthy padding, she might have a bit of unprocessed fear of rejection. She was used to being appreciated… once or twice.

Of course, he could be wrong. Their play had been intense… maybe too intense for a purely casual liaison. And anyway, win, lose or draw, in a few days he was heading back to Earth. No time to get all dewy-eyed.

“Playtime,” he said, hiding his disappointment even as he felt it dissolve. There was greater sport here, and he felt his gaming gland begin to pulse. Wayne was almost mechanical in the way he rolled out of the mesh and headed for the shower. When Darla joined him in the little spray cabinet, he was only perfunctorily welcoming.

But the water clung to them like jelly, and they needed each other to scrape it off and into the drains. He was completely new to lunar gravity. That was first frustrating, then fun, then-well, they were in haste. By the time he dried and began to dress, it was her turn to watch him with a smattering of disappointment. How could a man have forgotten her presence so easily?

But Wayne heard the thrumming beneath his feet, the distant bing-bong awakening the sleepers, felt if not heard the sound of water pumping through the walls, imagined that he could hear a dozen voices as dreams became reality, shortly to turn to dream once more. In five minutes they were dressed, and had eaten the tube breakfasts pushed through the door slot.

He hit the intercom button. “Fifteen,” he said, calling the room next door, where Angelique had turned in last night. She responded quickly.

“Wakey wakey,” she said. “Busy night?”

“Slept like a baby,” he said. Darla curled her tongue at him suggestively. Say hello to my little friend. She was definitely in character. Her behavior told him that something was going to happen, and it was going to be fast. Instinct warned him that, game-wise, Darla wasn’t going to live long. She was overplaying her hand, trying hard to make an impression.

“Meet you in the corridor in five?” he asked.

“Make it three,” Angelique said, and clicked off.

Fair enough. He slipped in his gamelink contact lenses (capable of receiving personalized signals from gaming central) and packed his bag. He was wearing tan Brit explorer regalia with mesh shocksuit underwear. Darla, dressed in a curve-accentuating feminine version, watched approvingly, and then stood. He grinned at her. “Let’s have a good game,” he said.

“Game?” she asked, too damned innocently, and stood out of his way as the door to the outer corridor slid to the side. She kissed her fingertips, then pressed them to his lips. “You go ahead,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you later.”

So. This was where their paths parted. Had she been sent to spy on him? Was this supposed to set him off balance? Was…?

He stepped out gingerly, not quite certain what to expect.

Nothing. Just a hallway, with Angelique entering a moment later, dressed similarly, carrying a pistol and a saber in a scabbard.

“What do we know?” he asked her.

“Look for anything Wells.”

Asako rolled out into the corridor: The bubble girl, looking alert despite last night’s revels. Wayne saluted with his sword. She smiled.

Another door in the hallway slid open, and Mickey and Maud Abernathy entered the corridor. He hadn’t known them before departing Earth, but knew their track record, of course, and a tiny bit of their personal history. They would be the oldest among the gamers, close to sixty if memory served him right. They had once been married, but then one of them had lost interest in gaming, and the relationship had drifted apart. If memory served, it was Maud who had gafiated. Mickey continued to play, but his solo characters weren’t as successful as their double-team. Their team personae were paired psychics. In a magical game, that might manifest as full-blown Dr. Strange-style abilities. Here, the effects would be more subtle, but no less powerful.

Mickey looked just a bit hungover, and Wayne didn’t blame him at all. Last night’s party had been massive.

Mickey and Maud extended hands to Angelique. “We’re not completely familiar with your portfolio, Lady Chan.”

“Perhaps you could refresh our memory?”

“I’ve studied many traditions of the sword,” she said. “And not merely the sword that kills. Also, the sword that gives life.”

Ah. A reference to sword techniques designed to take captives rather than slay. In this context, then, perhaps some of her healing points would still apply. The IFGS watched out for their players.

Whether the game was fantasy or science fiction, her powers tended to be the same: a swordswoman whose blade could suck or restore life force. Whether “steel” or glowing energy blade, she was an odd and spectacular meld of killer and healer. In a game with no fantasy or SF element, she would have great skills as a medic or doctor.

Mickey and Maud bowed as if they were joined at the cerebellum. “We are honored to meet you,” they said as one.

Sharmela Tamil appeared next, still dressed in a feminized nineteenth-century Raj uniform: a white turban, a uniform of thick blue fabric with draped cords across the chest. Medals Wayne did not recognize, and a military bearing-but also bangles and gemstones on fingers and ears. He sensed a complex and fascinating backstory, and promised himself to inquire at first opportunity.

Suddenly, a red light began to flash in the corridor. “Shuttle arrival in ninety seconds. Please make your way to the central departure gate.”

A series of bright arrows ushered them toward the previous night’s entry doors. Just as the last of the group arrived, the safety lights began to flash from red to green, and the door sighed open. They walked through a short coupling tunnel and took seats in a twelve-person shuttle with side windows and a bright central viewscreen.

“Buckle in, please,” a woman’s voice asked. Wayne recognized Darla’s mild Oakie twang. As soon as the last buckle was fastened, internal lights flashed from green to red, the door sealed.

Scotty heard a click as the external coupling was disconnected, and the shuttle began to coast.

If Scotty kept his eyes toward the ground, he could look out of the windows and feel no flash of panic. The same gray-white dust, the same cratered surface, rolling past in a surreal tableau. He could hear the ooh s and aah s around him and appreciate their reactions, while keeping his own reactions muted.

Ali kept his face glued to the window, fingers spread against the glass like a kid at a candy store. The gaming dome loomed up in front of them, ten stories high, wide as a football field, built within an impact crater older than the Coliseum. Their shuttle slowed, then crawled up a graded track to the side of the dome. He felt it shudder as it mated with the dome’s external wall-track, and after a series of little jolts it began to climb vertically.

Ooh s and aah s again, as the perspective began to shift, and their view of the crags, cracks and valleys, the craters and unweathered jutting spires of lunar landscape expanded. It took them two minutes to climb ten stories, at which point the shuttle rattled again as the track beneath them shifted, and they were pulled to a coupling at the very top of the dome. The shuttle sighed to a halt, and there was a nervous moment waiting for the safety lights to change. Scotty only realized he’d been holding his breath when green flashed, and the door opened.

A woman in explorer’s gear crawled out of the vehicle’s cockpit. “Ms. Tabata will exit last, please,” she said. This didn’t feel very genteel to Scotty, but he didn’t complain. Red hair: He thought he recognized last night’s mermaid.

0827 hours

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The ground beneath Wayne shook as with the strokes of a giant hammer, as regularly as clockwork.

The sun was nearing the western horizon. How could they not have noticed that before? The sound seemed to originate not merely beneath them, but off to what Wayne took to be the north. There were jagged mountains in that direction, and he thought that they would be easy to recognize, and that was as good a reason to choose an orientation as any.

They’d already lost the sphere… he could imagine that Xavier had just waited until they were busy bounding, and then distorted the visual field to “disappear” the sphere, a simple magician’s trick aided by their dizziness and disorientation.

Damn. It had happened in the BBC version, as well as the Harryhausen film. Take it as part of the script.

Now the ground itself seemed to be protesting their presence.

Angelique Chan raised her arm, poking it up from under the tangled flowers to Wayne’s left. “Head toward the sound,” she said, and they started to crawl.

Mickey whispered, “I haven’t been able to get down on all fours like this for donkey’s years. This lunar gravity is great for my back!”

Maud chuckled, and then went back to serious crawling.

Mickey was right, of course. Wayne barely felt any pressure on his palms or wrists at all. The slightest flexion of his wrist sent his hands and knees springing up off the ground, thumping back down so lightly it was a joke.

The plants were waxy to the touch. A closer inspection revealed that they had little or no scent, and rooted into some kind of web just beneath the dirt. Were they all part of one life-form, like the mycelial mass beneath a clutch of mushrooms?

Or were they perhaps just manufactured en masse and rolled out like an artificial lawn by the wizards of Dream Park?

He giggled to himself, and concentrated on what he was doing.

Boom… boom… boom…

The ground beneath them trembled. The gigantic circular plate beneath their feet first revolved, then began to slide away.

Gamers crawled backward away from the opening as fast as they could, as the lid retracted like the lens of a crocodile’s eye.

They could peer down into the depths, from which a deeper boom… boom… boom rang hollowly, like Mjollnir striking the anvil of heaven.

All right. Dammit, he should have read the original book. Were they supposed to go down? Was something coming up after them? In the movie the Moon was hollow, all caverns. Was it in the book? And if so, would Xavier confine himself to canon?

He crawled up to the edge and looked down. The tunnel dropped away shallowly, not sharply, a ramp leading up to the surface rather than a vertical mineshaft. The edge of the doorway was about three feet thick, with a series of dull glowing lights pulsing and moaning around the edge. Their low, bone-rattling intensity made his fillings ache.

“What is that sound?” Angelique asked. She was squinting, but seemed to be thinking hard. “Alarm? Alert?”

Before he could answer her, they both received an answer, in the form of a lowing groan behind them.

Something was coming. And whatever that something was, it wss groaning in sync with the sound coming from the rim of the flat circular door.

“It’s a homing call,” she said. “They’re telling the cows to come in.”

She raised herself up onto her elbows and called to the others. “Keep an alert! Something is coming. It’s big, and you don’t want to be seen, or stepped on. Look sharp!”

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The sound from below and the shaking ground behind them seemed to meld, and so suddenly that he felt adrenaline jolt up his spine, as the first sign of lunar animal life appeared.

It was enormous, like a segmented caterpillar half the length of a city block. Its flesh was white, and dappled, and with every laborious breath those sides rose and fell. Wayne could see no feet, and from the way it rose up and inched forward like the greatest worm that ever lived, it was more lizard than snake.

“Mooncow,” Maud said quietly. “That’s what it was called. A mooncow.”

All he knew was that he didn’t want to try to fight something this size. Its six eyes were relatively tiny, clustered around what he thought of as its nose. The caterpillar’s neck was fatter than the main section of its body. It opened its mouth and emitted a bleating noise that rolled over the crater rim and resounded from the clouds themselves.

Six, no seven man-sized creatures appeared around the mooncows. Their eyes were faceted, and their thin arms were covered with some kind of horny carapace, a substance that reflected the sharp light with a faint blue sheen.

One of the insectile creatures (Selenites? Was that the word?) looked in his direction, and Wayne ducked down. He felt something… a vague creeping sensation rippling up his back, at the same time that the earth itself seemed to tremble. The spit dried in Wayne’s mouth. Despite his best attempt to stay steady, a sour sensation that he recognized as fear began to boil in his stomach. He wiped his hands on his pants, and tried to slow his breathing.

Couldn’t let himself get spooked. Not so soon, anyway.

When he looked back up, the mooncows were halfway down the hole, humping along. At the right angles, their bodies were partially translucent. He thought he could see the contents of their stomachs, vast clots of vegetable matter churning their way through the beasts’ digestive systems.

Then finally the last of the mooncows was down the hole. The Selenites kept watch until the last minute, but he had the sense that they weren’t specifically looking for intruders, just keeping a mindful presence. Then they entered the hole, and a moment later the clanging sound began anew, and the lid slid shut.

Angelique held up her hand, palm flattened, and they rose from hiding.

Wayne jumped down onto the circular door with a thump. “Well,” he said slowly. “I suppose it would be too much to hope that they just left a door open for us.”

Asako Tabata’s pod speakers were normally indistinguishable from a human voice, but now they were amplified. “There may be a problem,” she said. “I note that the temperature is dropping.”

Wayne looked to the west, where the shadows were stretching toward them. To the east he saw something that made his skin creep: There where the sky was darkening, the clouds had blackened as well.

Even as he watched, the very first snowflake touched his upturned face.

“Oh, shit, ” Scotty Griffin said, and he looked not the slightest bit happy. “Nightfall. The air is freezing.”

“We’ve got minutes,” Angelique said. “We’ll freeze to death out here.”

Asako zipped her pod around the metal door’s circumference, stopping here and there to probe with little metal arms. Wayne got down on his hands and knees to inspect more closely. Arcane symbols, things that looked like dancing worms and burning leaves, were etched around the edge, but these might be just Moon-speak, and not necessarily gaming clues.

“How much time do we have?” Angelique whispered.

“Not much,” he said. The sky above them was scarred now, ripped by a silent storm. Pinpoint stars burned through the thinning air, bright enough to sear his eyes. What would happen as the night fell? First, the temperature would drop drastically. Then… the gases would start freezing. What would freeze first? Free oxygen? Nitrogen? CO 2? He didn’t know, but figured they’d be dead long before they knew.

It was snowing now, and the air was starting to feel like the middle of winter. He shivered, teeth clattering. The other gamers must be wishing they’d brought parkas. The plants around them were shriveling, browning and curling up. So… they were seasonal… if the Moon had twelve seasons a year. Or did every month have four seasons, which made a total of forty-eight seasons…

His mind was drifting. The cold was getting to him. Jesus! Was this Dream Park’s doing?

“I’ve got it!” Asako called out, and they ran to her side as her pod emitted an ear-shredding squeal, a higher-pitched version of…

“The mooncow sound,” Angelique said.

“Brilliant,” Wayne said, shivering.

The sound wavered then swooped low. The instant it hit the same tone that the mooncow had used, the door beneath them shivered and began to slide open. They had to scramble for safety, but the slab slid only a third of the way open, perhaps awaiting another mooncow call.

“Let’s get in there,” Angelique said.

And not a moment too soon. The sky above them was filled with snow, and blackening as they watched. Nothing would survive on the surface for more than another few minutes. The gamers jumped down into the darkness.

0837 hours

Angelique landed in a crouch, alert and silent. The ramp ran all the way to the lip, so she supposed she could have just walked down, but it was more satisfying, and certainly more theatrical, to jump.

The tunnel stretched down into the lunar depths for what looked like miles, with side tunnels branching off. Its brassy ridged sides reverberated with faint echoes. Selenites and mooncows, humping away into the distance? Possibly… but that implied that sounds carried well down here. Not necessarily a good thing. She held up a flat hand, signaling for silence.

One at a time, the others gathered around her, and as they did, the circular lid slid shut. BOOM.

So. They were in the meat grinder again. No way back. They had two assignments now: To find their ship, and to find Cavor. One might lead to the other.

“Quietly,” she said. “I’ll take lead. Wayne, you take the rear. Asako… stay with me.”

The woman in the bubble nodded, and off they went. Angelique noticed that the bubble’s treads compensated for the terrain effortlessly, lurching up and then back down as they passed the first tunnel ridge. The tunnel looked as if it might have been constructed from preformed sections.

“What’s this?” Mickey Abernathy called from up ahead.

“You’re the psychic. You tell me,” Sharmela said, but when she squinted into the dark to see more clearly, her voice fell silent.

There in the middle of the tunnel was a pile of brownish muck half as tall as a human being. Broad coarse tufts of moon grass jutted out of it, and the consistency was a lot like peanut butter. Warm peanut butter. And it stank.

Wayne howled and wiped his hand on the tunnel floor. “It’s mooncow sh- dung!” he said, correcting his language for a family audience. That bald-headed son of a bitch! Some kind of joke? Hoping to bump them out of character?

If audiences back home were enjoying Wayne’s discomfort as much as his companions, this game was going through the roof.

Just as he finished wiping his hands on the ground, the walls around them began to hiss. Steam gouted forth, three streams from each side and the ceiling, focusing on the pile of mooncow excrement. The gamers scrambled away as the pile melted, shrank, finally sluiced away into grates in the floor.

The vapor hung in the air, dissipating so slowly that it might have been smoke. Ali, the skinny African magic user, backed up with one hand on his sword. “There’s something in the mist,” he said.

Angelique stopped laughing instantly, and dropped into a crouch. “Alert!” she called. “Ali. Sharmela. Can you dispel?”

Sharmela ran up to stand at Ali’s side. She was a little shorter than the kid, twice his thickness, with a forceful bearing that led Wayne to suspect she could break him into pieces.

The pair might have been practicing for a month. In tandem, they raised their arms as they stood before the growing, billowing cloud. Not steam now, but some kind of smoke.

“By the bones of my ancestors-” Ali said.

“By my mother’s blood-” Sharmela chanted at the same time.

“Dispel!” they both called. A wind swept down the tunnel, punching into the mist like a fist into a cotton cloud. For a moment, they could see clearly. Perhaps two dozen Selenites stalked toward them, their carapaces vaguely warlike, as if they had been born in armor and battle helms. Each of them gripped a staff with a crooked head. Their faceted eyes glowed red as the mist dissipated. They howled, and charged.

“Ali, Sharmela. Back to second position! Wayne, front and center!” Angelique drew her sword and charged.

Regardless of his years in gaming, all his experience and skills, for the first hours of a new game it was impossible for Wayne to totally turn his mind off, to stop noticing the glitches, stop trying to second-guess the Game Master.

But… there was a moment, there came a time. When the illusion of the game, the effects and the scenario and the players all melded together and overwhelmed the part of his mind that knew he was Wayne Gibson, nobody, current address Las Vegas. When the adrenaline started to run, he became Wayne Gibson, thief and warrior.

The slithery whisper of steel on leather as sword left sheath was music to his ears. The sword balanced like a willow wand in his hand.

His sword was a Mitsubishi FlexMax 80, designed for close-quarters impact work. Eyepieces recommended. (And he noted the faceted goggle-eyes of the Selenite masks. Protection for NPCs.) No sharp edge, and a telescoping point. While not suggested for use against bare skin, the soft plastic surface above a foamed metal core would generally produce about as much damage as a willow wand while simulating the deadly appearance of any sword imaginable. To all but the most discerning eye, the FlexMax resembled a British army officer’s sword with a brass handle and snakeskin grip.

Dream Park’s computer system would eventually augment the localized holograms, improving the images for discriminating Earth-bound consumers. Wayne couldn’t care less: In his mind, he was fighting for his life against an entirely convincing alien horde, and a moment’s hesitation meant death.

For Queen and country! Wayne Gibson was out for alien blood.

Angelique stood to his right, guarding his flank as he defended hers. From the corner of his eye he caught Griffin backing them up. He was a thief, yes, but a thief with a sword. And he looked as if he knew how to use it.

Game fencing was different from competition saber or foil. You could be an Olympic saber champion, and without IFGS points your thrusts and parries simply wouldn’t register. Meanwhile, a relatively unskilled opponent with gaming experience would cut you to ribbons. So the fact that Griffin appeared to have a bit of genuine sword skill was irrelevant. What were his points? In some games you knew everything there was to know about your teammates. In others, like this one, you learned as you went along.

But as the gamer part of his mind took over from the logic, all he thought was My sides and back are covered. Let’s get it on.

The first Selenite stepped into range. Sword crossed staff. A blue light at the tip of the staff glowed violently, and a brief, sharp tingle ran up his arm. Damn! He slid his head to the side, and a flare of blue fire boiled out of the tip, missing him by an inch. Those behind him would just have to fend for themselves.

Wayne ducked under the stream, disengaged his blade and thrust. The Selenite’s scream was more like a teakettle’s whistle than the anguished howl of a living being.

The blade slid in, and a thin stream of greenish ichor flowed in return. Wayne kicked the Selenite away and turned back to the fight in bare time to avoid the touch of a staff.

“Stun staffs!” he screamed.

Angelique swayed to the side and thrust at a Selenite’s segmented chest. “Can we neutralize them?”

“Better hope so,” Mickey said. He and Maud had linked hands, and then raised them, and a shrill squealing sound rang through the tunnel.

The insects howled in pain. Instead of clapping their hands to the sides of their heads, several of them dropped their staffs and hugged their sides, twisting and dancing in apparent pain.

Angelique grinned. This was going to be a slaughter. At first she had worried that Xavier was playing some kind of really ugly game. Would he really kill them in the game’s first hour?

No. Any entertainer knows that an audience can be angry with a short show, especially if they have paid premium prices. Xavier knew that an excessively dangerous game would actually diminish the profit of his next event. She could be fairly certain that his early challenges would be irritating but not lethal.

Of course, that was assuming that he was playing for posterity, and not personal vengeance…

Her team had made a tight knot, and moved forward in formation, hacking and slashing. Thieves used swords and knives, but lacked the lethality of the warrior class. That was fine: They made up for it with stealth.

Griffin and his little friend Ali were having a grand time, slaughtering Selenites by the bunch. Darla was hanging back, sword raised, ready for attack from the rear.

Wayne killed an insect man and scooped up the energy spear it had been carrying. He blasted another Selenite, then slid the weapons down his shirt front, catching Angelique’s eye.

The insect folk kept arms and elbows tucked to their sides and were unable to defend themselves effectively, so that even Asako Tabata was able to score kills. Her pod’s stubby little arms spouted threads of fire, perhaps a laser of some kind, cutting through their enemies so that the tunnel was heaped with smoking corpses. Mickey and Maud kept their arms raised, chanting and concentrating. The air around them rippled with energy, distorting the view of the tunnel so that the entire visual field flexed and shimmied.

The Selenites finally broke and ran, screaming for their lives. Or… so Angelique thought.

Then the walls, as if they were actually in some kind of immense speaker system, began to vibrate with a tone similar to the one Mickey and Maud were broadcasting.

Pain!

An electric crackle crawled up her shocksuit, and she cursed. In game reality, that meant they were being hit with a pain or immobilization ray of some kind, and the shocksuit’s buzz would cause genuine discomfort if a gamer didn’t get the hint.

She dropped her sword, and clapped her hands over her ears, dropping to her knees. Around her, her team was collapsing, as the Selenites reflected the psychic wave right back at the intruders.

Angelique collapsed. Paralyzed.

They were caught.

0920 hours

Smoke and dust choked the air. Juice from shattered insect cocoons slicked the floor. Several embryos were dead and still, but others curled and crawled blindly, seeking shadows.

Ali wriggled out from under his sticky bonds. He’d left some outer clothing, but he had his sword. He swept it around him and slashed along Wayne’s left side, Wayne being the nearest.

A dozen insect soldiers stepped through the wall, climbing with a segmented angularity no human being could manage. Angelique had the bizarre impression that they were holding their power-spears in the same fashion a British soldier might have held his rifle in bayonet-ready position. As disciplined as any corps of Beefeaters, they advanced in a line. The one behind them might have been an officer: larger, scarier, four arms ending in metal claws, and a demon mask with teeth like a saber-toothed cat’s.

The emerald creature shrieked, and a dozen guards appeared in the room, positioning themselves between the green interrogator and the sudden incoming threat.

Ali was trying to cut other gamers free, but it was slow work. Wayne was still half tethered. Only his arm and the Selenite blasting spear were free.

The guards scrambled, thrusting with stun-staffs and sharp objects that looked as if they might have been snapped off a praying mantis’ foreleg.

The newcomers thrust and parried in a manner reminiscent of classical European swordplay. The parries, ripostes and degages might have seemed perfectly at home in a French saber salle. The green one had retreated against the wall. It opened to receive her just as the newcomers pushed the guards back and formed a line between Selenites and gamers.

Wayne aimed his blasting spear at the newcomers’ officer. Its weapon swung toward Wayne-as Ali knocked his weapon aside.

What?

“Ally,” he said. A beat. The officer could have killed Wayne, but didn’t. How the hell did Ali figure that one? Wayne gaped, then nodded.

Angelique gasped as several of the newcomers lifted her up like a sack of potatoes and carried her out of the room.

And from that point, aside from the sound of insectile screams and metal-on-metal, she knew no more of what happened in that chamber.

The gamers were swiftly spirited through a maze of darkened tunnels, until she lost track of all the twists and turns. Perhaps ten minutes later, they were in a chamber with softly glowing golden walls, with shining cushioned floors, and a shining ceiling.

Their rescuers deposited them on the ground gingerly, with a degree of respect and consideration that their previous hosts had entirely lacked. Ali was being led; though armed, he remained docile. As for the rest, their bonds were slashed, and the gamers rolled to their feet-except for Asako, whose pod treads finally activated again, so that she was able to roll around the room, exploring.

Wayne asked Ali, “How did you know that thing-”

“Sir, I know my Wells. And I believe he described such a creature, and gave it a friendly disposition.”

What? Where? But… well, damn, Wells had a gigantic oeuvre, and it made sense that the kid might know something he didn’t. Still, it irked him. “Fine.” Exasperated. “It didn’t kill anyone. Now it’s taken us to this hive-”

Ali said, “What do you think is going on?”

“Civil war?” Wayne asked.

“Is this a cell? What are we supposed to do now?”

“Save us.”

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Angelique turned this way and that, hoping to catch a glimpse of her benefactors, but the shadows defeated her.

“In the walls,” Maud said, and pressed her hands against a golden surface. Did she see something? Mickey wore virtual gear, contact lenses capable of receiving images from the central gaming computer: magic users and psychics who wore such lenses could literally see things the other gamers could not.

She and Mickey joined hands, and Ali came to stand beside them, lending his magic to their efforts. And…

The walls dissolved. At least, that was the visual effect. Became translucent, perhaps. Arm-sized, glowing grubs appeared in the hexagonal wall chambers. Dozens of them. Perhaps hundreds. Unborn, but moving slowly, like restless, sleeping infants.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“We are the future of our nest, and we need your help.”

“Where is Professor Cavor?” Wayne asked.

“The great one is lost to us. He showed our people a new way, and then was taken from us. But we remember him, and follow his teachings.”

“His teachings?” Angelique said.

“He told us that we have the right to decide what our lives will be, that we are not only to toil unto death in the darkness, at the pleasure of our Queen. And for these teachings, he was sentenced to death.”

There it was, the word that they had hoped not to hear.

“Then… Cavor is dead?” she whispered.

“No. He lives.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We rescued him. The guards assigned to protect us were mind-locked to follow our commands. They rescued him from the executioners, and took him to the caverns, where the colony dares not go.”

“The caverns?”

“The deep darkness, where the Old Ones live, the ones who could not be bent to the hive ways. There the Queen has no authority. There, Cavor lives… or did until last lunar day when he sent us a message.

“Even though he hides, he still inspires and teaches us. We need him. We dare not enter the caves, for such transgression might birth war. But you are outsiders, as he was. You can go, and find him, and bring him back. If you do, then the hive might rise up and take its freedom. Overthrow the Queen.”

“And then… if we do this… we would be able to leave? I will tell you honestly: We come to take Professor Cavor back to Earth.”

“That would be perfection. He would return to Earth our emissary, capable of brokering a peace between our peoples.

“Will you help us?”

Well, that was more like it. A rescue mission. And perhaps then a battle to win the Moon. With their retreat Angelique’s spirits soared.

“We accept,” she said.

There was a trilling burr from the walls, as if an entire forest of cicadas had awakened from their slumber at once.

“We are so grateful to you. May we show you appreciation?”

“What do you have in mind?” she asked.

The walls parted and insectile creatures appeared, carrying platters of steaming meat and vegetables. “Professor Cavor showed us how to make the food he loved. Our fungus can be trained to produce flesh of any flavor and texture. Please accept this offering.”

Scotty Griffin snagged a chunk of meat from the platter, and took a healthy bite. The rest of them looked at him, as if their growling stomachs were suddenly awakening from slumber.

Angelique sat beside him, and he noticed that Sharmela had arranged to sit closely next to her. Their knees brushed. Sharmela took a healthy bite and grinned at the Lore Master. “Tastes like chicken,” she said. “As long as your chickens taste like tofu.”

From Heinlein base to Hanzo crater and the Pan-Asian group, to the European Union spray on Luna’s dark side… to Falling Angels, the industrial complex orbiting in geosync, to the L5s and the surface of Earth a quarter-million miles away, the adventures of the first lunar expedition into nineteenth-century fantasy dominated the entertainment news.

They crowded in bars watching the vidscreens, they hosted home parties with overflowing bowls of popcorn served to couches filled with engineers and tram-jockeys hypnotized by wall screens, they programmed their watches and glasses and the corners of their transport windows to display the streaming live or edited feeds from the gaming dome.

And that was hardly the extent of it. With seconds or minutes of delay, the feeds flew out as far as the asteroid belt, to the other L5s, and crossed the quarter-million-mile gap to Earth. And there, if the reaction on the Moon had been in any way restrained, all pretense of dispassion dissolved as soon as the images hit the thousand million screens.

From Rangoon to Portland, from Tunisia to Tel Aviv, it was estimated that 12 percent of all the viewers available were tuned in to what the IFGS called the Moon Maze Game. Legal and illegal gambling had already placed a half-billion New dollars; that amount growing by the second. And the network had yet to edit much of the footage at all: This was raw, real and unfiltered. The secondary market for more polished versions was enormous. While the initial viewers were treated to the occasional glitch or imperfect effect, those willing to wait for a day received visual perfection. In forty-eight hours they got supplemental narration, and a week after the game the gamers themselves would have laid down their own commentary.

Games were always popular. But unusual games, with unusual stakes or locales, could become cultural phenomena. The Moon Maze Game was arguably the most expensive game ever mounted (the final details wouldn’t be available until the insanely complex web of subsidizers, exchanged labor and energy, and all construction work was combed through by an army of lawyers and accountants) so a half-billion Earthviews was not a particularly impressive number. In fact, it was assumed that the IFGS was still chewing its collective fingernails.

And would, until the game was over.

1013 hours

Initially a volcanic bubble created by the geological activity that had marked Luna’s ancient volcanism phase, Heinlein base’s main aquifer had been blasted and sealed until it could hold a hundred million gallons of melted lunar ice.

It had taken decades to build up enough lunar water for the subject of recreational swimming to be seriously broached, but at last it had. And with the specter of tourism and the income that such tourism promised, the possibility of using the aquifers for water sports on the moon was delicious.

In one-sixth gravity, scuba and snorkle and swimming took on a completely different feeling than it did on Earth.

There were three entrances to the aquifer within the main dome: one in the main rec room, one in the water recycling facility and one in central maintenance. Because the sealed cavern was irregularly shaped, some of its pseudopods extended outside the main dome, and one reached under the dome now designated as “Gaming A.” In fact, the underground lagoon had been co-opted as a part of the game.

Thomas Frost considered these things as he made his way down through the dome’s service corridors, careful to deactivate or scramble any security cameras along the way. It was quiet and cool here, down where the main bubble’s support struts were sunk in bedrock.

Quiet, too, now that he had closed the vacuum safety doors behind him, sealing them and moving on. It was much like descending into a tomb. There were other paths, wider and better lit paths, descending into this darkness, but this one seemed not merely adequate, but appropriate.

Nothing that Thomas had planned or had done in training on Earth had quite prepared him for this. This was not theory or plot or dream. This was deliberate, and real. Their primary believed that anyone whose visa included off-Earth low- or zero-gravity experience or travel would be flagged and given special attention as a security risk.

Had that happened to Victor Sinjin? The man assigned to trade places with Chris Foxworthy had failed to check in. They couldn’t reach him. They’d had to use a backup plan.

Or… perhaps trained spacemen would pose a different kind of security risk. Certainly, if Kikaya III was in any danger from Earth, said danger would come in the form of operators experienced in the ways of vacuum.

Thomas and Doug had gone another route. Every man they’d hired was used to deep-water operations, with all that that implied about pressure and oxygen and the dangers of a single unguarded moment.

What had happened to Sinjin, in an unguarded moment? Were they blown? Was it too late to call this off? Yes, infinitely too late. They could only go forward.

It felt as if his heart were pumping ice water. He didn’t want to consider what would happen when Shotz learned of this mistake. This all had to be timed properly. He’d heard that was the secret to any military operation. Surprise, courage, force and timing. When they worked in your favor, you won.

At this moment, all of them were working in the favor of their plans. If that continued, Shotz would be in a good mood, and if he was in a good mood when he learned about Sinjin…

Then the men of Neutral Moresnot might just fulfill their contract, after all.

1033 hours

“So… what in the hell is going on?”

Kendra and Xavier sat in a com room not fifty feet down the corridor from gaming central. Xavier’s eyes glittered like little acetylene flames. He swung his feet from the edge of his chair like a petulant gnome who considered a human’s death to be little more than a personal inconvenience.

“What’s going on is that my game is in suspension,” Xavier said.

“Excuse me,” Kendra interjected, fighting to keep her voice level. “A man is dead, apparently during an attempted assault. Chris Foxworthy was sealed incommunicado in his room by some kind of override device. Despite this, he apparently checked into your game.”

Leonard Cowles III was the on-site arbiter for the International Fantasy Gaming Society. He had been here for over a month now overseeing the final construction, recruiting gamers, coordinating travel, publicity and expenses. Happily, this was his headache. “Please,” he said. “Slow down. Ms. Griffin, you said that this man Victor Sinjin was found dead… but that some time between the time of death and the discovery of the body, someone using Foxworthy’s identification checked into the gaming area?”

“Yes.”

Cowles’ mouth flattened into a thin line. “And what do you conclude?”

“I don’t know. I just know that we have to stop the game so we can search the gaming area.”

“Wait just a minute,” Xavier said. “So one of my NPCs was assaulted, and killed his assailant. And someone still used his ID to get into the game, somehow. I can understand your concern. But we can’t just shut the whole thing down right now. Four hours and we quit for the night. Then you can tear the whole thing apart: We’re off the clock.”

“I’m not sure that you understand. This is a murder investigation.”

“And that dome is private property, by the terms of our lease with Cowles Industries,” Xavier said. “I want this cleared up as much as anyone, but we have a worldwide audience exceeding a billion people. Are you aware of the web of finances necessary to connect a billion people? The obligations I’ve incurred? Do you have any idea of the lawsuits I will be exposed to, if this game is delayed by more than a few seconds?”

“I’ll take personal responsibility,” Kendra said.

“It’s not that easy,” Cowles said. “The liability negotiations were especially intense from my family’s side of the table. The only way the board of supervisors would ratify the deal is if the IFGS assumed all responsibility for what happened in the dome from the time the doors locked until the conclusion of the game. The dome has its own battery bank and communications, the gaming system is on a separate link from everything else. This was your choice, please remember.”

Kendra thought she was going to scream. She saw where this was headed, and didn’t like it at all.

“You’re telling me you think I have no authority to search the dome?”

“I’m telling you that the repercussions are huge. My family has made a large chunk of its name in the entertainment industry, which is why I’ve taken personal responsibility in this matter. What you propose to do now could risk its relationship with the IFGS, and gaming worldwide. Do you want to make that decision?”

“I do. My husband is in that dome,” she said.

“All the more reason to assume that things are secure,” Cowles said. “All we’re asking for is four hours.”

“Four hours,” she said. “A lot can happen in four hours.”

“I’m afraid that I insist on the right to appeal to my board of directors.”

“As on-site chief, I have the ability to make decisions-”

“And if the dome actually belonged to Cowles at this moment, that might make a difference,” Leonard Cowles said.

“Four hours.” Kendra drummed her fingers against the table. “In all good conscience, I cannot allow this.”

“It is not your decision to make.”

Kendra felt a burning sensation on the left side of her head, deep behind her ear. Dammit. The air in front of her rippled. “Ms. Griffin?” Stan Linberg said urgently. “There is a news bulletin that you might want to see. Now.”

Something was very very wrong, even worse than she currently dreamed, but she couldn’t detect the shape of it. It crawled her scalp. Bad times coming.

The air rippled, and a newsfeed appeared, an Asian newsman reading from a teleprompter as images of explosions in some tropical country played in the background.

“-death in the Republic of Kikaya, where rebel forces hold both international airports and the major communications facilities after a lightning raid in the early morning hours. King Abdul Kikaya, the last remaining monarch in sub-Saharan Africa, has responded swiftly. Paralysis among his troops suggests that there has been a deep penetration of his military chain of command, and-”

“Cut,” she said, and the image froze. “All right, Stan, this is bad news for someone. Why me?”

“Because… at least one of the gamers is playing under an assumed name, and his point of origin is the Republic of Kikaya. We have investment capital from the republic, and… we actually have two workers from the republic here at Heinlein.”

“Really?” That raised her eyebrows. She knew of several Central African workers among her people, but didn’t remember any from Kikaya.

“Yes. They’re naturalized American citizens, but I remember some conversation about them. They stand out because they’re twins.”

“Twins?” That raised a memory. “Thomas, maybe?”

“Yes, and Doug. They were supposed to cycle back to Earth, but both extended their tours. Anyway, because of those connections, when I was going through the gamer list I saw the red flag and looked closer. There was a secret of some kind there, and I admit I dug into it.”

She felt like a cold lump of rotten cottage cheese was sitting in the pit of her stomach. Something bad was coming. “And?”

“And the participant traveling as ‘Ali Shannar’ is actually Prince Ali of Kikaya, heir to the throne.”

“Shit,” she said. She looked up at Xavier and Cowles. “And what do you make of that?”

“Ms. Griffin. I am sorry to hear of instability in the Republic of Kikaya, but that is an unstable region, I believe. What possible connection can it have with events a quarter-million miles away?” Spreading his hands in supplication, Cowles seemed the very soul of reason.

“Xavier?” she asked. “You are Game Master, and if you gave permission, we could elongate the break time, and do a sweep of the dome-”

“Let’s not,” he said. “Most of the dome is already under observation. Patch in the security cameras to the gaming units, and create a full dome image. I’m sure our missing player will turn up.”

“And with a perfectly reasonable explanation,” she said. She sighed, and stood. “Well, I’m afraid that you’re right: The IFGS controls that dome for the next three days. But when I can get that board meeting, our lawyers are going to look at that contract.” Kendra placed her hands flat on the table and locked eyes first with Cowles, and then Xavier. “But you’d better pray that there’s nothing wrong in there.”

1056 hours

Asako Tabata’s capsule buzzed up to the edge of the abyss. A slender camera probe extended from the tip and bent down to peer into the darkness.

“What do we have?” Sharmela asked.

“A looong drop,” Asako said. They had finished their meal, and, after reiteration of their mission (to travel into the forbidden lunar depths to rescue Professor Cavor), had been ushered into a gloomy rock tunnel by an insectoid guardian and sent on their way.

The nine gamers and their guide proceeded with greater caution now. While Xavier would never have killed one of them off in the first hour of the game, now that they had been fed and rested, he might very well consider it all in good fun to slaughter a couple while they were digesting their food.

Ho ho ho.

Wayne watched Asako there at the edge of the drop, a four-foot fissure slicing the narrow tunnel in two. Perfectly easy for most of them to make a jump like that, especially on the Moon. But Asako, in her bubble?

Her withered hands manipulated several controls, and a little rail extrusion grew out of her front bumper, three feet long… and then four. It anchored to the far side, making its own bridge, and her pod began to hitch itself across. When she made it to the far side, they broke into appreciative applause. Then the others just jumped across one at a time. Only Mickey Abernathy had any difficulty at all, and that wasn’t from the length of the gap. He misjudged his angle and hit the wall a meter up, almost bouncing back into the gap. Maud grabbed his tunic and pulled him to safety.

More applause as Mickey pretended to be even more off balance than he really was, wheeling his arms and making a great show of being terrified.

The show must go on.

The bioluminescent fungus glowed just enough to make an effectively creepy passage. Somewhere up ahead of them, water dripped against rock. Angelique held up her hand, and they stopped, listening.

Somewhere up ahead of them, someone or something screamed. The sound was low, so full of echo it was barely discernible as anything originating in a living throat. But it was enough that swords and guns emerged from sheaths and holsters.

Angelique motioned Wayne up to the front, but as he passed Scotty he whispered, “Take the rear. Something’s coming and you move as if you recognize the sharp end of a sword.”

The big black guy grinned like a shark. “Kept me breathing a time or two.”

Why did he have the feeling that that extended outside the gaming world? And was he Ali’s friend? Relative? Lover? Something else? No time now. That echoing sound was closer… and then gone. Silence as they walked through the tunnel.

His skin started creeping again. Dammit! Why was he experiencing that? He’d heard that Dream Park had some trade secrets they refused to discuss publicly. A former DP tech had appeared on a vid special discussing something called “neutral scent” and various subliminal sound cues designed to freak players out.

His teeth were starting to feel as if he was licking a battery, but he refused to let the creepy feeling shut his head down.

Generations of alien feet seemed to have worn the stone smooth. The walls were cool and damp to the touch.

Sharmela held up her hand. “Wait. I sense a vibration from ahead.”

Wayne couldn’t see anything, but his lenses were coded differently. “What?” Angelique asked.

“Near.” Sharmela closed her eyes. Now Mickey and Maud had pulled up even with them, locking hands and rolling their eyes convincingly.

“What is it?”

“Ambush,” they said. “We see… ladders. And stones. And enemies.” Mickey lowered his voice to a portentous growl. “We must face them.”

Dum da dum dum.

“Alert. We have warriors front and rear. Watch every step. They’ll hit us hard, if they can.”

1125 hours

“What is this?” Ali asked. “Are you…” He searched for words. In the intense, bleaching light he looked young and lost. “Did Professor Cavor…” He was trying to work it out, make sense of it all in the framework of the game. “Who are you?”

Scotty Griffin’s nerves were burning. He put a hand on Ali’s shoulder and pulled him back, warned him to silence with a shake of his head.

“Very good,” the leader said. “I don’t mind you knowing my name. Before this is all over, everyone on Earth will, and I’ll never be able to use it again anyway. I am Shotz.”

1150 hours

Fear hung in the room like a curtain of hot, wet air. It was like trying to breathe steam. Scotty Griffin examined the plastic bands cuffing his wrists in front. Given time he could find a way to sever them… but would he have time? He couldn’t guess when or even if such an action might be advisable. And even if he managed to free himself and his companions, where could they go?

The captives were sequestered in a storage bubble. Ali had been separated a few feet from the other gamers. The implication was perfectly clear: This was all about the Prince.

Judging by the degree of deference displayed by the others, the lead kidnapper was the one named “Shotz.” A golden-locked golem, as solid as a granite spur. His face could look flat and hard or masculinely attractive, depending on his expression. Shotz radiated a sense of disconnected amusement about everything, and Scotty wondered where the man had picked up the scars on the right side of his throat. His second-in-command seemed to be the red-haired Viking goddess they called Celeste. He had the ugly suspicion he had seen her before, briefly, in Switzerland. And wondered if she had recognized him in turn.

She and a couple of the others had entered and exited the room repeatedly. She was now looking down at them with a low flame in her eyes, as if she enjoyed their helplessness and hungered for the opportunity to exploit it. He reminded himself not to give her an excuse.

“These names: Michael Abernathy, Maud Abernathy, Angelique Chan, Sharmela Tamil, Wayne Gibson, Scott Griffin… move to this side of the room,” she said. “On your knees, hands behind your heads.”

Ali looked as if he wanted to faint. Scotty wanted to say something, but was cautious about announcing their relationship to these people. Why give them information they had, as yet, shown no sign of possessing? “What about me?” Ali said weakly.

“Ali Shannar? Excuse me: Ali Kikaya the Third. You will come with me.”

Time to forget caution. “I’d like to go with him.”

“And you would be…?” The blonde said, smiling pleasantly. Her eyes roamed over him.

“His friend.”

She chuckled. “Well, ‘friend,’ I think not.” She leaned close. “I think I know you, my friend.” So much for Switzerland. “We may have playtime later. But now, I think you had better get back on your knees. Shotz?”

Behind her, Shotz seemed to come out of his internal trance, almost like popping in and out of a separate reality. “Here is the situation: We have business with Ali Kikaya the Third. In fact, it is this business that brought us here. We have no interest in any of the rest of you, which may be to your advantage, assuming you cooperate. If you cooperate, you will remain unmolested. You will be reasonably comfortable, and will have all the amenities we can offer in exchange for your cooperation. Because we don’t care about you.”

A pause. “But… if you cause us difficulty of any kind, that will be an entirely different matter. Because we do not care about you. Do not care whether you live or die. It is marginally easier for us to keep you alive than it is to shoot you, or march you naked into the sunlight. I would suggest that you remember the word ‘marginally.’”

Behind Scotty’s shoulder, Angelique snarled. “You can’t get away with this. There are security forces.”

The woman looked at Angelique as if she were something in a petri dish. “If the dome is attacked, you die.”

Their bonds were checked carefully. Shotz left the room, and Celeste turned to face them. “There is nowhere for you to go. If you cooperate, you will be reasonably comfortable. If not…” She shrugged, but again, Scotty saw the little light go on in her eyes. This one wants to make an example of one of us, he thought.

As lightly as if he were a baby, she picked Ali up by the arm, and carried him from the room.

1215 hours

Despite the attempts to keep things quiet, Heinlein dome buzzed with speculation. Kendra had made a brief announcement, asking for calm and noninterference. In such a frontier community, it was easy to imagine someone trying something heroic and suicidal.

Right now, her offices were crowded with engineers and experts of various kinds. It hit her that security was understaffed. But who could have anticipated such a thing?

“We’re pretty much shut out,” Toby McCauley said. “Scans suggest welds at all entry points, and the doors electronically sealed. They only open from the inside.” He paused. “But there is just one possibility I see.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Kendra said.

“Well, all of the primary power was cut. They pretty much ran a perfect game there.”

A Japanese engineer raised his hand. “But they missed something.”

“What?” Kendra asked.

“Well…” The engineer’s communicator bleeped. “Pardon.” He tapped his chest tag. “Ishikura.”

In gaming central, the light from the central monitor washed over Wu Lin’s face, making it appear even longer and paler than usual.

“So they made it out,” Kendra said. “Where are they?”

“Scans shows human bodies in a bubble two rooms away from the kidnappers,” Wu Lin replied.

“Can they get out from there?”

“Perhaps,” Xavier said. “Perhaps. If you look at these earlier vids, you can see this woman-”

“I know her. Wu Lin? Face rec.”

“Darla Kowsnofski, structural engineer.”

“Thank you, Wu Lin. That’s a very good thing. She seems to know her way around the dome. She might be able to get them out. I wish we could talk to them.”

“It’s a miracle we can-”

“Xavier?” Wu Lin said. “We’ve been watching the gamers, and I think something is going on. They’re trying to make contact.”

Kendra was at her side in an instant. “Have we got sound?”

“We can,” Xavier said. “Pipe gaming auditory auxillary ‘A’ into the main channel.”

There was a moment of silent anxiety, and then Angelique appeared in the air, waving her hands at the camera. Her hands gestured: palm-palm-palm, fist-fist-fist, palm-palm-palm.

“What is she doing?” Xavier asked.

“Morse code,” Kendra said. “Scotty and I met through an aviation club, and we both loved the twentieth-century stuff. Pilots used Morse for their VHF omnidirectional range navigation systems. Let me have the switch.”

In response to Kendra’s urging, the light in the gaming dome began to pulse.

The mood in Kendra’s nerve center had plummeted from bad to worse, but when Max Piering entered, she found herself feeling optimistic even before he gave her his news.

“We’re pretty much shut out,” he said. “I only see one real possibility.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“Well,” the big man said, “all of the primary power was cut. They pretty much ran a perfect game there. But they missed something.”

Was there actually some good news? “What?”

“Well…,” Piering said, and leaned toward her.

1327 hours

Heinlein base’s nerve center was going berserk, their interlocking screens sectored into subimages as news agencies across the solar system descended upon them like locusts. In the midst of it all, Kendra fought to find an island of peace, from which she might think clearly.

“Kendra,” Foxworthy said. “We have the biotelemetry on the suits, and we’ve hacked into Asako’s bubble. Ah… your husband’s vitals are through the roof.”

“Oh, God. His agoraphobia. He’s outside.”

Was that a glint of perspiration on Xavier’s bald head? “What is the problem?”

“Three and a half years ago, Scotty was trapped in a cave-in. His suit ruptured. He almost died. He was staring up into the sky the entire time, and it kind of burned in. This is no good.”

“What can we do?”

She drummed her fingers on the desk. “Can you link us?”

“Outside the dome? We should be able to hit him with a line-of-sight. Get com on it now. I’ll handle this personally.”

“I think that’s best,” Kendra said. “These bastards didn’t do this alone. Talk to no one you don’t trust personall y. Trust your instincts.”

1350 hours

Clusters of mushroom shapes shadowed bubble 60-E. As they watched, lights glowed to life. The air crackled, and suddenly the walls and ceiling seemed to fly back, expand by a factor of three. The bubble expanded into a gigantic cavern, complete with staggered rows of stalagmites, and a hundred varieties of fungus.

Angelique was the first to speak. “Wow,” was all she could manage.

1430 hours

From the safety of Heinlein base, Kendra watched the gamers climb down through the hatch.

“So… we can watch,” she said, “but we can’t communicate with them.”

“No,” Xavier said. “I haven’t access to any of the lights. All are on automatic.”

“And the dancing bugs,” she said. “You had nothing to do with that.”

Xavier sighed, as if trying to project infinite patience. “No. All of that was programmed before the kidnappers damaged the circuits.”

Kendra glared at him. “And you are aware that their lives depend on their ability to navigate these passages?”

“Of course.”

“Pardon me,” Kendra said, “but it seems to me that you are enjoying all this just a little too much.”

He smiled at her placidly, and she left.

Wu Lin drummed her fingers on the table. “Xavier,” she said. “You have no control at all? The gamers had to perform that dance?”

“I wish I could say I had control,” he said.

Wu Lin smiled at him. “It was very entertaining.”

He interlaced his fingers behind his head, and leaned back in his command chair, drumming his feet like a happy child. “Wasn’t it, though?”

1430 hours

Within the gaming dome, the gamers were making their way through a tunnel into bubble 61-E. Scotty was in the lead. He held up a hand. “Where are we? Darla: How’s the map in your head?”

“One level up from bedrock. We can get down into the foundation layer if we make it through here.”

They cautiously opened a door leading into the next bubble, and stepped in. It was a cavern filled with flowers with metallic petals. Their wristlamps stabbed into deep pockets of shadow.

“Look here,” Sharmela said. “Somebody’s home.”

They gathered around to see a row of robotic Selenites lined up against the wall.

“My guess is that these were supposed to come to life. Some kind of display or attack. No power, no attack.”

“Look,” Wayne called. “Finally! An emergency communications node!” The glowing green triangle was obvious once you focused your eyes properly.

“Thank God!” Angelique said, and tapped at the flower indicated. “Xavier? Can you hear me?” She drew an earpiece from the middle of the flower. Scotty stood close, listening.

A pause, and then a thin ghost of Xavier’s voice floated to them, from nowhere, from everywhere. “I’ve been screaming at you, but I guess only the earpieces are working. No loudspeaker. Listen to me: We detect heat signatures moving in your direction.”

“What can you tell us about the search patterns?”

“There are two down on the pool level. They didn’t even try to follow you, just assumed that they could cut you off if they got there first.”

“Good thinking,” Scotty said.

“Aside from that, they’re doing a standard grid search, one level at a time. But the good news is that it looks as if they have one team searching from the top down, while another searches from the bottom up.”

“Why is that… oh, I see. If they miss us, they’ll go up. If we can fool them, we still have to get past the two at the pool.”

“Yes, that’s true. And we might be able to help. We’re trying to route auxillary power, but they scrambled us pretty damned well. You’ve got about three minutes. Find a place to hide.”

“Where?”

“Here’s a hint: You see stalagmites, but not stalactites? Nothing projects from the roof?”

“… Funny,” Wayne said.

“The stalagmites are hollow. We were going to ambush you.”

Angelique stiffened. “What?”

“Well,” Xavier said, “if you look closely, those stalagmites aren’t rock. They are actually piles of mooncow dung, calcified.”

“What? And what was going to attack us?”

Xavier chuckled. “Let’s just say that mooncows have worms. With teeth. I’d suggest that you hide.”

As he finished speaking, Scotty pulled another earpiece out of the flower. “What are these?”

“Just a local network. Probably only works inside this room. There are what, three sets in there?”

“Then let’s use ’em,” he said.

1457 hours

Ten men and women had gathered beneath the harsh lights and sharp shadows of Heinlein’s northern motor pool. The newcomers might have been confused by Piering’s frantic calls, but all were committed to the task at hand. He recognized Gypsy from his own security team. Then there were Hazel and Lee, both tough women, a Communications tech and a Fabrication specialist. Then an ex-cop named Chambers, a guy from Food Services and an He3 miner.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why we called you here,” the big man said. “You are all either Security, or have police or military experience. All checked the little box on your contracts agreeing to serve in a Security capacity if needed. Well, you’re needed.”

“The dome?” the lanky miner asked. This was Jankins, probably the oldest man in the room. Tall, pale and looked like he was made of catgut wrapped around barbed wire.

“The dome,” Piering agreed. “The Beehive, currently called the gaming dome, is now controlled by an aggressive threat calling themselves ‘Neutral Moresnot,’ professional kidnappers with allegiance to no nation or cause. We’ll call them ‘the pirates’ for simplicity’s sake.”

“Fatalities?” the miner asked, his narrow face pinched.

“One that we know of.”

Chambers scowled. “Who?”

“One of theirs, thank God. We think his name was Victor Sinjin. British expat, mercenary, career criminal. In a few minutes, we hope that the gamers inside the Beehive will be able to blind the pirates, keep them from seeing what is happening outside the dome long enough for us to get there, get in, and take them out. There may be explosives planted in the dome, so our rescue team has to wear pressure suits in case of… accidents. The use of lethal force is authorized.”

He paused, scanning their faces in challenge. If there was anyone who might object to killing, this was the time to speak. No one did. “Any questions?”

“Yes,” asked Hazel, the short, round woman from Communications. “What are we facing in terms of weaponry, honey? And what exactly are our own resources?”

“Damned good question,” Piering replied. “We believe that the opposition is armed with makeshift weapons. These include air guns and possibly crossbows of advanced design.” He paused significantly. “Made here on Luna.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that somebody here helped?”

Concerned faces twisted into ugly masks. In an instant, the rescue party had transformed into a lynch mob. Piering raised his hand for silence. “We aren’t sure what we’re dealing with, and shouldn’t leap to any conclusions. The point is not who might have turned against us. The point is that we have good people in bad hands, and need to do something about that-now.”

He waved his thick hands above one of the workbenches, crowded with a hastily assembled array of weaponry. “Nail guns are lethal, but only at short range. No more than five meters. We’ve reworked a half dozen handheld welding lasers, but they aren’t lethal at more than a dozen meters-but can blind up to a hundred. The most promising possibility?” He raised a bulky pistol-like device. “Used by engineering. Piton device. If it can throw a steel arrowhead into rock at fifty meters, it can kill a man.”

He braced his meaty arms on the bench. “Here’s what I ask. Everyone here has fired a weapon. I’m not asking you to stand down if you haven’t fired a piton. But find the weapon that is closest to something you’ve already used. We have maybe an hour before we get the green light. Practice. And keep practicing. And then we’ll take it from there.”

“What’s the entry plan?” Hazel asked.

“Two teams,” Piering said. “One will enter at ground level, G. I’ll take a team up the side to level C. That’s where Asako Tabata’s body is. I think the pirates might be a little spooked by that, and give us a clear shot.”

1527 hours

The air pressure at Earth sea level is approximately 14.7 pounds of pressure per square inch. The air in the gaming dome was held at a pressure closer to 10 pounds per square inch, still dense enough for easy breathing, close to the cabin pressure of a jetliner. The dome, roughly the diameter of a football field, held a volume of about 175,000 cubic meters of oxygen, imported nitrogen and helium left over from He3 mining.

When members of Piering’s A team tried to avoid the ambush by exiting and reentering the dome through another lock, the air pressure had been stable. When Gruber’s unfortunate mistake with the explosive device shattered the inner door and damaged the outer, it was as if the air was a living thing, seeking a path of exit, testing and pushing against the outer door as emergency blasts of Liquid Wall sought to heal the breaches before they became fatal.

But (and there is no way to put this delicately) there had been human beings in that airlock. When the inner door exploded, what remained of Gruber and Enroy was spread around the lock like a layer of lumpy raspberry jam and shredded pressure suit fabric. Nozzles that should have spread Liquid Wall evenly and swiftly were twisted by the blast, and jammed with human debris. Damage to the outer door became the weak point attracting every pressurized molecule of the oxygen-nitrogen-helium mix.

The crack deepened, and split, and the outer wall breached. Instantly, the airflow pushed against the opening, deepening, widening, and then ripping the door from the inside out.

The gaming dome became a screaming hell.

1623 hours

The very first thing Scotty noticed was the moist, cool air against his cheeks. He realized that he had missed that over the last hours: The atmosphere throughout most of the dome and its bubbles had been fairly dry. This was different, and his pulse raced: There was open water nearby, perhaps within a few hundred meters. As Maud brought up the rear Scotty closed the door behind him, glaring at its insufficient lock. The inner side had been retrofitted with a turn-wheel that might have seemed at home on Captain Nemo’s submarine. That, he thought, must have amused the engineers tremendously.

He twisted it back and forth, testing the mechanical works. Yes: The wheel was fully operative. Turning it engaged both bolts and bars. Fantastic, but he wanted more. He looked around for something to brace it with. The door opened onto a grilled metal pathway suspended across a suspiciously vast cavern. Most of the cavern was the sort of fused-wall lava bubble he’d seen and explored so often during his lunar tenure. But a hundred meters farther out the smooth surfaces were disrupted with jagged cone-shaped stalactites and stalagmites. More Dream Park magic, no doubt.

Discarded bits of equipment and material were strewn about. This chamber was meant to be some kind of a workshop. Scotty clawed through the conveniently tumbled debris until his fingers curled around a slender steel bar. He slid the bar into the wheel and tried to bend it. Failed.

Wayne, Angelique and Mickey stepped up to help. Angelique wrapped some of her shirt’s beige fabric around her slender fingers to protect them. The others just grabbed and began to heave. With a slow groan, the bar bent until it was jammed in the spokes. When he tried to revolve the wheel, the bar thumped against part of the rock wall. And there it stuck.

Scotty rubbed his hands together, immensely satisfied. “Great.” He turned to Mickey. “Find something heavy to prop against the door. In fact, just pile up everything you can drag. Should slow the pirates down.”

Maud looked skeptical. “They’ll just blow it open.”

Scotty’s answering laugh was ugly. “Considering their recent experience with vacuum, I’m hoping they might be a bit more… mindful.”

1646 hours

Mickey crouched, hugging his knee, moaning and muttering as he rocked. Scotty said, “You don’t kick a door down on the Moon. We build ’em strong.”

“I felt it give, just a little.” Mickey looked up, suddenly hopeful. “Maybe both of us?”

What the hell. But there was only room for two. “Rest the knee. I’ve got this.” Scotty motioned to Wayne. The two men braced themselves and charged the portal, and rammed through, spilling onto their bellies in close-mown grass that didn’t smell like grass, or anything else.

A shadowed mansion loomed above them, edged by blue sky. Rows of meticulously manicured hedges, enhanced by life-sized statues of animals, nymphs and men in heroic poses. An English countryside estate?

Angelique caught herself mugging astonishment, audience always in mind. The others were more sensible, or quicker. They fanned out and took cover behind solid-looking concrete sculptures. Scotty’s hand whacked a Chinese dolphin experimentally: foam plastic. “Not good cover,” he barked. “We need to get inside. I’ll lead.”

Nobody said, “It could be a trap.” Scotty bent low and ran for the huge front door-which stood open, very trap-like. He slid in on his belly, rolled right, and looked.

High ceiling, high enough to make him feel like a child. Floor made of… cork? No clear targets.

Light glowed only in this nearer region. They had entered a vast playroom, dotted with chairs and card tables and bureaus pulled against the walls under a facing pair of big, ornately framed mirrors. Wooden blocks had been shaped into miniature castles, public buildings, row houses. Dowels for chimneys. Cardboard had become walls and bridges. A waterfall drawn in blue chalk plunged down one wall and became a river, growing wide, until it was a rapids running in blue-and-white stream lines around pale rocks. Clumps of leaves and twigs were arrayed into a miniature forest. Nothing moved.

Beyond the play area blackness loomed.

“It’s some kind of kid’s game. I don’t see a threat,” Scotty called.

Angelique eeled in and rolled left. Then Ali, Wayne, Sharmela, Darla. Maud followed, leaning on Mickey. Wayne was trying to work a “detect danger,” but there weren’t any signals from the Game Master’s control suite. “We’re on our own,” he said, “but there’s power-”

“Look at this,” Ali said. He was on the floor some distance in, playing with a toy cannon a foot long. He triggered something. A light foam projectile flew from the cannon to impact a foot-high toy soldier, which rolled away.

No. Crawled away. In the shadows, Scotty had assumed the soldier shapes were carved wood, or ivory. Now he saw that they were grubs, infant versions of the mooncows, balanced absurdly on their tails and waiting for instruction. Their tiny limbs twitched. Their eyes rolled in endless loops.

“What in the world is this?” Angelique asked.

“At first I thought it was lawn chess, with living pawns and pieces,” Ali replied. “But now I don’t think so. This is part of Wells’ world. It’s from a pair of pamphlets called ‘Little Wars’ and ‘Floor Games.’” He lined up another target. The projectiles were little wooden cylinders; the gun was spring-loaded. There were several scattered about the floor, clustered like opposing artillery. He fired into a rank of frozen grubs and when the soft projectile struck they skittered away in different directions, then regrouped and looked at the gamers, their faceted eyes somehow… hopeful.

Alien children playing toy soldiers.

“‘Floor Games’?” Wayne asked. “What in the world is that?”

“H. G. Wells,” Maud gasped. “Tracts on gaming. Little-known, but legitimate canon.”

Ali rolled over and spoke rapidly. “I’m sorry to admit this may be more of my father’s doing. I have played a version of ‘Little Wars’ on many occasions.” He sighed.

“Regrets later,” Scotty said. “Right now, Daddy’s perfidy might save our butts. Give it up.”

“H. G. Wells invented tabletop war gaming with tin soldiers and spring cannons. He laid out systems of rules that were used for a good century. Blocks to make toy buildings. Coin flips, at first, to win hand to hand conflicts-”

“Ali! Lose the history lesson and tell us how we use this.”

“Well…” The grubs were lined up in three armies, like three different sides of a triangle. While all were the infantile insectoid forms they had seen previously, those directly in front of them were gussied up in little British uniforms. Those across the way were relatively uncostumed, and those to the right, amid toy tripod Martian walkers, had a vaguely Lovecraftian appearance.

The Selenite soldiers carried slender insects with wasplike hindquarters. In place of artillery stood rows of potato bug-looking critters, their butts turned up in the air. Coils of glowing intestines within transparent bodies, they resembled fancy little Christmas tree ornaments. Living energy weapons, perhaps? Surely, in the game Xavier had planned for them, all this would have been explained by now.

How to make it all go? The grubs mewled and crawled in little circles, then returned to their original positions. Awaiting instruction.

Wayne’s eyes lit up. “All right. This is the same biological tech we’ve seen all over the hive. Living chess pieces, and a nice plush chair here. I’m thinking Cavor sat here. ”

“And how did he control the game?”

Wayne shrugged. “Charisma. Language skills. I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter. We have psychics. If this game module is programmed for independent action, I would bet that…” He turned and looked Maud dead in the eye. “We have someone just about perfect for this adventure.”

“M-me?” Maud asked. She struggled not to stutter. “Maybe Mickey-” She grasped at his arm as if holding on for dear life.

Politely but firmly, he peeled her hands away. “I don’t know ‘Little Wars,’ love,” he said. “I think you really are the expert this time.”

“I don’t have time to learn,” she said, eyes gleaming with fear… but something else, too. Eagerness? “We’d have to play it first,” Maud said. “Think there is an instructional program built into this?”

“Meanwhile,” Sharmela said tartly, “we’re being hunted by armed killers. Madame Deceased Guide, is there an easy way through here? Or around? The real game is to get down to the aquifer.”

Darla frowned. “I haven’t seen this place. The lights are on, so we’ve got power. No communication. It’ll be on automatic. Between the bubble rooms it’s still vacuum until we get down into the aquifer. We’re going to have to game our way through.”

Angelique said, “We would have had a meal and rest break here, I think. Fat chance of that now.”

Scotty said, “The pirates can’t fly. They couldn’t have trained on the Moon, and I broke their wings. I’d say we have an hour, maybe a little more. We can do this, people. Look-this was almost the end of the overall game, wasn’t it?”

Angelique nodded. “Probably.”

“And do things accelerate toward the end? Or do they slow down?”

“Accelerate. More betting, more monsters, usually bigger special effects.”

“And this is relatively sedate.” He waved at the lawn, the mansion, the statuary.

Wayne seemed to catch his meaning. “This is a pause, a breather before Xavier hits us with whatever he’s got at the very end. It’ll be pretty straightforward. Actual play, usually combat, as opposed to running in circles trying to figure things out. That would be frustrating for the viewers as well as us. So assuming that we have the right resources, we should be able to just… play the damned game.”

He crouched down. “Look. We’re not going to have to read some friggin’ book. Wouldn’t that be exciting to watch? I’d say that game time would be no longer than we’ve got right now in ‘real’ time.”

“So…,” Ali said thoughtfully. “We’re supposed to be able to figure it out pretty quickly.”

“Right. So look. What is this game? What is it that all war games do?”

“Simulate wars,” Angelique said.

“That’s right. Whether you’re talking football, or chess, or RPGs, there is”-he started ticking off points on his fingers-“territory to be taken, people to be captured or killed, perhaps a King or Queen to be neutralized. Tactics and strategy. Individual and group action. Defenses to be degraded, and weaponry to be destroyed or taken. The rules are just to simulate the structure or chaos of a military campaign, and allow a conclusion within some agreed-upon framework of time and location, you see?”

A thread of excitement was worming through the group, but Scotty couldn’t let himself get swept up in it. “Listen: Moresnot may be an hour crossing that gap, but we still need to set a guard. That’s me, I think.” He waited for a nod from Angelique, then slithered out the front door.

Mickey said, “Maud and I’ll take the Earth army. The Brits.”

“I’m not sure there’s another choice,” Angelique said. The chair on the Lunar side held a grub that looked annoyingly like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.

The Martian chair was filled with another young Selenite, wearing some kind of partial facemask with antennae and pincers more mollusk than insectile.

“I’m betting that this is straightforward: Our psychic sits, and the game begins. Shall we give it a try?”

Maud sat. Instantly, a gigantic head and shoulders appeared above the field. It was human, white, male, bearded. And spoke in thunder.

“I am Dr. Claud Eustuce Cavor. I have been on the Moon for twenty years. The Selenite Queen has entrusted me with some of the guidance of her children, over two hundred of them. I designed this place at her command.”

Scotty was studying the floating head carefully. “I know him,” he whispered. “Another Lunie, name of Piering. So he was supposed to be Professor Cavor? Geez, he must be pissed.”

“Shhh!” Angelique said, waving her hand angrily.

“I have never seen an attack by Martians, but I am assured that such has happened, and that the weaponry we have given them in this game accurately represents reality. So do the Selenites’ weapons and various troops, of course, and I’ve imitated our own cannon and transport and other devices as best I can.

“I ask you to be gentle with our young grubs, and to remember that the nurturance of tomorrow’s leaders is today’s greatest responsibility.”

Maud wiggled to find a more comfortable position in the chair, wincing as the helmet embraced her head. An instant later, the grubs “playing” game pieces commenced moving with purpose and apparent consciousness, shaking themselves and stretching as if from a prolonged slumber.

“How shall we begin our attack?” she asked. Her hands twisted in air, as if seeking control levers.

“Let’s try shelling the village,” Wayne said. “Soften them up a little.”

And she set herself to it.

“All right. Ah… burn down those villages.”

A thin current of moist air wafted through the room, but nothing else happened.

“It’s broken?” Scotty asked.

Wayne snapped his fingers. “The autopilot thinks you aren’t gaming hard enough. Rhyme it, Maud.”

She looked at Wayne as if he must be mad, but then laughed. With a level of theatricality she had not displayed in hours, Maud touched the tips of her fingers to her temples, and fluttered her eyelids closed.

“Children of Luna,” she whispered, “fulfill my desire. Use your strength and rain down fire!”

Their team’s little grubs mouthed the trigger strings controlling the cannons. The cannons roared, arcs of fire blazed above the field, and cannonballs the approximate size and heft of marshmallows sailed into the complex of buildings representing Luna.

With a fiery whoof they splintered or collapsed. Cannons on the lunar side popped, and some of the Earther buildings exploded.

Then the Martians weighed in, sending fire at either side, and the war was on.

1821 hours

Wayne dropped, cradling his crossbow in his arms, alert as if something very real and dangerous might be waiting for them. The tilted, twisted floor was very slick, but friction heat was still building up under his butt and shoulderblades.

He hit the water hard, and sank deep. Kicked away and leftward as Angelique dropped in behind him. The water was tepid. Not salty, but something… spent gunpowder? A taste of moondust.

His head broke the surface and he scooped water off his eyes and mouth, and looked around him quick.

The pool was a circle of Olympic size… a hemisphere, in fact, very deep in the center. A ledge ran all the way round under a tremendous volume of rock cave. The slide had dropped them near the middle of the pool.

“Get to the edge!” he cried. “If we’re standing and they’re floating, we can shoot them like sitting ducks!” He started swimming like mad.

Angelique popped up behind him. Others were following.

How much was real? This stone ledge, at least. It seemed to run all the way around, making a perfect swimming pool. Wayne heaved himself out. Water came with him, a sheath that drained slowly in lunar gravity.

The cavern was bathed in blue, a restless wave of azure light washing across the floors and ceiling. The entire room was gray unweathered rock. He was stunned by the size… until Wayne realized that it simply couldn’t be this large. It was larger than the largest caverns on Earth, with stalactites the size of Moon missiles depending from a ceiling high enough to shelter clouds. To the sides… well, there were no limits to the sides, so far as he could see. The room’s light dwindled away to shadows long before it revealed walls. Just… rock. Spars of rock like jagged teeth, broken jaws grinning and gaping at them in all directions.

How much was illusion?

“Nervous?” Angelique heaved herself clear. Her crooked little smile had never seemed so endearing to him. She had watched him with Darla. Angelique had set the rules, from the very beginning. Had she come to regret them?

He turned to her. The others were still far enough behind that they had a moment of privacy. “Angelique,” he said. “Look. Whatever happens now… whatever happens in there, I just wanted to say… thank you.”

She seemed genuinely startled by this. “For what?”

“For the best game anyone ever played,” he said.

Their eyes held each other for a long time, and then she cupped his cheek in her hand. “Let’s play this out, partner. Time for good-byes later.”

“Not always,” he said.

1841 hours

Scotty emerged from the pool, water thick as syrup sliding slowly from his face. The cool air bristled with magic. Angelique danced five feet above the ground, levitated by a pillar of light flowing from Sharmela’s palms. He had to look very closely indeed to detect the tiny blur of the “real” Angelique, concealed in radiance.

Ali held both hands in front of him, projecting a wall of shimmering crystal. “I speak to the Gods of my fathers,” he said, “who peopled the Earth in the First Days. Children of Air and Water and Earth. I call upon Zarabanda, God of iron, God of my fathers long ago, to give me strength! I throw off the colonial shackles, and step into my true power as a warrior of my people!” He held his arms up, waiting…

And waiting…

Nothing.

Scotty shivered, wiping himself dry with his shirt, and then slipping his pants back on. Soggy. “What… was that?”

Ali shrugged. “If this is to be my last stand,” he said, “I want to die as a hero of my people, not just another African soldier loyal to one European crown or another.”

“A little late to get political, isn’t it? And… this isn’t a game, Ali-”

The boy laughed at him, but the tone was bitter. “Oh, it’s a game. This entire thing is a game designed to trap my father. He escaped their grasp, but I have been caught. You have been caught. All of you-”

The gamers ceased their practice to listen. Ali seemed to have grown somehow, easily commanding their attention. “All of you!” he said. “Whatever happens here today, know that Prince Ali knows what you have done for him. Know that I will not forget, and that I will not forget you, any of you.”

Sharmela slapped his shoulder, hard. “Nor I you, young mage. You may have concealed secrets, but you have carried yourself with honor.”

She extended her hand to him, and he took it. Wayne placed his hand atop hers. “All of us. We all came from distant lands, at the call of our Queen. And the adventure we have shared went beyond our dreams.”

Scotty still couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. This wasn’t a game! It was…

Oh, what the hell. Some games are played for very high stakes. This time they were betting every marble they had. If there was a right more sacred than the ability to choose the manner of one’s own death, he didn’t know what it could be. He watched as, one at a time, they clapped their hands down one upon the other in a vow of fealty. “We stand together,” Mickey said, and put his hands down. Followed by Maud. And Angelique. They were a clan of a kind, making the very best of the very worst. Something dark and magical glittered in their eyes. For the first time he thought he grasped the logic of it all.

Angelique turned and extended her hand to Scotty. “Come on, big guy. Get in here.”

Scotty hesitated, and then felt the voice inside him say: Oh, why not.

And he put his hand onto the pile. Win, lose or draw, this had been one hell of a game.

“And I,” he said, impressed by the timbre of his voice. “A mere thief, pledge my all in this mortal combat. We stand together!”

The others nodded, a circle of power, well pleased with what they had wrought.

Xavier, a floating bald god, smiled down upon them. “I will help where I can,” he said. His expression grew more serious. “And get ready. Griffin and Gibson, you are both thieves. Your power is stealth. You would have found something right out of Wells, given the right path-” Xavier jerked. “I hear them. Take your places. The pirates are coming.”

2341 hours

Eventually the reporters were asked to leave the gamers alone. The survivors had been debriefed; the pirates were still being questioned. Now, finally, the gamers staggered, exhausted, into the makeshift gaming lounge. For a time they just sat in their chairs, wounded and pale and tired. Medics moved among them. They stared at each other, bandaged and bruised, and then grinned.

“Now that, ” Wayne said, “was a game.”

“It would be just about perfect,” Angelique said. “Except for Asako.”

“Asako,” Wayne said. “Shit. I’d almost managed to forget. Hey. Let’s dedicate the game to her. I mean, for what it’s worth, let’s make her the biggest gaming heroine in history.”

Sharmela managed a tired smile. “I think she would have liked that.”

“I’ll second that,” Scotty said. “Woman was die-hard.”

At his side, Darla wearily agreed. She and Wayne were draped around each other, touching, kissing and whispering as if there was no one in the room. She had almost drowned, almost been blasted apart, almost been knifed… almost drowned again. It was a wounded Wayne who had spotted and rescued her.

And to the rescuer went the spoils.

Scotty thought that there was something strong there, something that might last.

And that was fine with him.

Xavier swept into the lounge, followed by Wu Lin and Magique. “The IFGS has, for the first time in almost a decade, called this game a draw. We have an invitation to mount it again, in six months.”

“Oh, no.” Angelique rolled her eyes. “You have got to be kidding. That’s not happening. I can’t even afford, let alone-”

Xavier grinned. “Can’t afford? Have you checked your bank balance? Do you realize that this game had the highest ratings in history?”

She looked at him dubiously. “Were we broadcasting?”

“Every minute. Everyone in this room is rich. And a couple of us are just absurdly rich. Numbers will be forthcoming, but think six or seven zeros.”

“I’m already drowning in zeros,” Sharmela said, sagged back into her chair, almost delirious with contentment. “Carnation Fit/Fat came through. I didn’t know anyone really got that much money. For anything.”

The gamers dissolved into talk. Scotty noticed that Xavier and Angelique leaned very close together, while Magique and Wu Lin looked on in approval.

Wayne approached. “Hey, Xavier…”

“Yes?” the little man said, looking up.

“You, uh… you came through for us. I owe you.”

Xavier narrowed his eyes. “All right. Let’s see just how grateful you are. How about the truth. Did you turn me in back at UCLA?”

“Did you take money to put Ali’s drawings in the game?”

The two men stared at each other. “No,” Xavier said. “I was stupid. My favorite writer wanted to collaborate with me, right out of the blue. But Ladd had a favorite artist, and he turned out to be a pseudonym for a Kikayan prince. I’m disgraced. I may never completely recover my reputation from that. Is that honest enough for you?”

Wayne paused. Then he nodded.

“Yes it is enough, or yes, you betrayed me?”

“Just… yes,” Wayne said. He chewed at his lower lip. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever done. And I’m sorry. And thank you for saving our lives.”

Xavier gazed at him, his own alien thoughts swarming behind the blue eyes. A silver serving-bot slid past them, with brandy snifters filled with champagne. Xavier plucked up two of them. “So, Mr. Gibson… shall we work together, and become even more ridiculously wealthy?” He held one of the snifters out to Wayne.

“You… would trust me again?”

“I trust no one,” Xavier said. “I trust myself to know what a man considers to be in his best interest. I believe I understand you now.”

Wayne accepted the offered glass. There was a tremor; his champagne foamed. Xavier tilted his in a toast, his arm around Angelique’s waist. “Good game,” he said.

Scotty tiptoed out of the room. No one would miss him, and he had things to do.